Knowing
by Whispers in the Dawn
Summary: Souls can be just as devious as the next person. And when you have lived millenniums, all it takes is just knowing when to make a change. One change and watch the butterfly effect happen. Watch out, it's the Black family's time to rule. So what if their newest member seems a little strange? So what if Lord Voldemort is slightly obsessed with him? He's still their little seer.
1. Cepheus Pollux Black

Disclaimer: I'm black haired, black eyed and still living with my parents. Do you still think I'm J K Rowling?

**A/N: This has been revised and betaed by Azakial. No extra scenes have been added.**  


_Harry speaking using/to magic_

**_Voldemort speaking using/to magic_**

PROLOGUE

The soul whose latest incarnation had been that of Harry Potter frowned mentally a little, wondering what had he done wrong to deserve this assignment. Sometimes he wondered why no matter what dimension, what time, what world or even which sex of the bodies he occupied, somehow he always ended up having the same type of life every time. He watched expressionlessly as the faceless soul in front of him seemed to tear the upper blob of her body in half, he knew it was a female, her markings proclaimed her as so. He wasn't surprised at the gruesome image presented though. He had held the job of coordinator a few times himself and knew it was simply the mask all coordinators had to wear to protect them from those wishing for a little revenge. He waited patiently as the soul in front of him finished the process of making a mouth appear and then he asked, "Why?"

She gave a shrug before replying in a tinny voice, "There are some souls that simply attract trouble. You are one of them."

"So," he asked mockingly, "This time, I am going to either die before even being born due to some food poisoning that my carrier will suffer out of the blue or die three months _after_ my birth due to an illegal ritual to transfer the magic my body will have to a magic less body?"

She replied calmly, "At least you wouldn't be killed deliberately in the womb, or even have your magic stolen from you for the express purpose of killing you."

"Been there, done that." He stated coolly.

"You wouldn't be tortured as a two month old, nor even have your parents tortured instead."

He simply lifted an eyebrow in a '_you can do better'_ gesture. And she did. She continued expressing all those gruesome things he _wouldn't_ be going through except he already had in some life or the other, not that he took it personally or anything, till she huffed and said exasperatedly, "You seem to have an even worse luck than Pyroses and he ended up getting gutted in every single life he had till he decided to go through a sex change."

He resolutely didn't smile. It wasn't funny, even though he had laughed at it when he first heard about it. "I want something special," he stated resolutely.

She said in a musing tone, instantly putting him on guard as she hadn't even tried to convince him otherwise, "You could get a soul bond?"

He said, "How droll. Soul bonds don't exist for me. I'm not bonded."

"You could be," she suggested

He simply looked at her. She tried again, "You can get a magic bond."

He sent derision at her, "If I get a magic bond, it will already exist and will have nothing to do with you. It doesn't work like that. We can't meddle with bodies, only souls, and while we can make the magic we possess complimentary to someone else's, true compatibility comes from blood."

She tried another tactic and told him in a sympathetic tone of voice, "Once you're out there, what's meant to happen will happen. It already has in the other dimensions. You've even accepted some of them."

He upped the amount of derision he was sending at her. He _knew _that. Souls were, after all, something that spanned all over space and time. It was only little pieces of them that ever entered a body. Most of him simply spanned the Astral Plane. Even now, if he concentrated enough, he could feel all his extensions, one sleeping, one crying, one dying and one being birthed. Naturally enough, they didn't remember all this when they were in a body, unless of course, the body was a necromancer, in which case they kept their mouths firmly shut. He knew quite well what had happened to the little baby in the other dimensions. If he tried hard enough, he could even feel it right now. Dying due to a miscarriage, dying due to a magic stealing ritual done prematurely, dying due to being strangled in sleep. He felt all of this and these recollections made him speak up, "I don't want to die this time."

She told him, "I already told you. What happens there is outside of our control. It's not as if one of us out there could help you simply because you wished so. They're all already there. They can't remember, no, they'd go mad."

And then he had a thought, "Then make _me_ remember. If you can't make the souls out there remember, let me. Let me just _know._"

She said slowly, "You'd go mad. Not to mention this is all quite unorthodox, though it is quite like what we do for the necromancers and the seers. But they are naturally different. The creature blood in them flows extra strong and keeps them from going mad. Yes, we could do something like that." She stated, switching her views suddenly. He knew why she did that. Here she was, a soul that hadn't yet gained the ability to generate magic in the body she entered, and here he was, a magical soul for millennia. It was a status thing.

"The creature blood?" he pointed out.

The mouth like hole stretched into what was no doubt meant to be a smile but came out looking like a grimace. "There's some elven blood a few generations back. If you survive the food poisoning, then I'll bring out the creature inheritance during the ritual. After all, it meddles with the soul as that is what makes someone magical, not just the blood, and everything with the soul is ours."

"And I won't die during the ritual?" he questioned just to be sure.

"You ought not to. Your inheritance will trigger your memories so that the astral filter will be dissolved and that will no doubt cause some sort of backlash. Not to mention, the ritual only works if the soul hasn't yet settled into the body since that is the only way the soul will change the bodies."

He smiled wryly and asked, "It's surprising, isn't it, how we always end up doing the very thing we do now? Deciding which body hosts which soul?"

The soul in front of him said nothing as there was nothing to say, instead imprinting the changes they had decided upon in the group of shining lights in front of him. She then went to make the preparations for him to enter the body of the child. Taking advantage of her preoccupation, he went over to the lights that functioned as paper did in the physical world, containing messages, images, sounds and even thoughts, and sensed what was written, and then he decided to make a few changes. He looked at the soul in front him but she hadn't noticed anything. As he had also been a coordinator, the lights accepted his input.

_Newbies_ he thought derisively as he finished making the changes. Oh well, he thought with a mental smirk, he had always fancied being a seer. It would be so much _fun_.

* * *

October 31 1963

Tom Marvolo Riddle, self-titled Lord Voldemort felt the itch to throw a few Cruciatuses around. He wondered, again, why he had agreed to come to this ball again. It wasn't for the company, he thought sardonically. Those who knew who he was treated him with all the deference he deserved except it inevitably degraded into a bunch of brownnosers. And those who _didn't_ know who he was treated him far too dismissively for his liking. There was simply no compromise, especially since Dumbledore had been poking his nose where it didn't belong again. The man had had his demand to be recognized rejected out of hand simply because he didn't like him, never mind that it was his birth right, he thought with a twist of his lips that made those of his followers who were present, shrink a little on themselves, wondering how they had managed to anger their master this time. Orion Black, seeing how his master had started fingering his wand, hurriedly interjected before the party was ruined because his Master decided to torture one of the guests, discreetly of course.

"My Lord, Walburga and I were discussing baby names and thought that it would be only right that you have a choice in what your latest follower will be called. Indeed, it would be an honour to have your opinion on the names." He murmured.

There, he decided, that came out right. It was respectful enough, showed that they appreciated his thoughts, and didn't pressure him to make a suggestion, or allow him to think up some sort of name of his own. Not to mention it also reiterated that the Blacks would be loyal to him, something very important as none of his part of the family had taken the Dark Mark, though his brother-in-law had. Anything else and he would have been the man under the Cruciatus, a favourite of his master since their school days.

Voldemort debated pursing his lips to show how unfavourable the suggestion had been and then thought of himself and the name he had been saddled with during his childhood. Then his thoughts turned to the fascination that Orion had with dogs and the fact that the only reason the entire brood wasn't named after dogs was because Walburga had put her foot down. But it was none of his business and if it irritated Walburga, all the better. The woman had been one of his firmest opponents in Slytherin House when he first entered Hogwarts, though in later years, as he became known as the Heir of Slytherin, had become much more subtle about expressing her opinions.

He was about to open his mouth and make a scathing and cutting comment about how if he wanted to name a bunch of unborn brats, he would tell them when he saw Bartemius Crouch. And if that wasn't annoying enough, following immediately behind was Alastor Moody. Moody was the quintessential Gryffindor, and while Crouch was still young and cunning enough to be a Slytherin, the man had a hatred of all things Dark, despite the fact that his mother was a Black. He knew quite well the young man would go far, but it seemed that the path he would follow would be the one opposite to his. And both were heading his way. A headache threatened to start behind his eyes. He really _would_ Crucio someone if he had to listen to the little Crouch preach or Moody send out barbs about his reputation. Knowing that Moody's distaste for children ran as deep as his, he graciously nodded towards Orion, in the manner of a king conferring a great honour. And he was, after all, Orion wasn't even marked.

"Canis," Orion announced proudly and promptly.

Voldemort kept his face blank. He was right. The man really had a fascination with dogs. No wonder he married Walburga, his cousin, she looked quite a lot like a dog. Reuben Lestrange, the dark haired pureblood with violet eyes pointed out what Orion should have already known. "I don't think your wife would let you name another of your children after a dog. Isn't your Heir named after the Dog star?"

Orion ignored him and said in a dignified tone of voice, "Volans."

Cygnus Black, the man's own brother in law, though he looked more like a brother considering they both had the classical Black looks, interjected, "You want to name my nephew _fish_?"

"Flying Fish," Orion corrected.

"Still fish," Cygnus insisted. At least the man had enough brains to not want to have the brat go through making connections with a name like that. Though it could also be compassion over what he had gone through with his name meaning swan, in which case he was a blighter with a bleeding heart that would have to be punished.

"Pavo?" Orion asked, though of course, he would deny doing any such thing. Voldemort smirked and said silkily, "That's something Abraxas would name his child.

Abraxas showed no physical reaction to the barb, though his eyes flashed silver for an instant before returning to their normal pale blue colour instead saying delicately, "Boasting of one's looks is such a… _plebeian _thing to do. Not to mention, a Malfoy would never disgrace himself by behaving like a peacock. It would mean that he wasn't naturally talented enough for his abilities to be clearly visible."

With the implication quite clear that a Black would have to due to a certain lack of impressive talents, considering that was what Orion wanted to name his son.

"Lepus," Orion said with a tight jaw. Voldemort had no doubt things weren't going as planned. He had planned on showing his respect for him by letting him choose the name, and here instead, all his contemporaries were busy insulting his naming sense.

Voldemort smirked as Moody and Crouch came near and said distractedly, not that he let anyone notice, "I have, in recent years, gained a certain taste for flesh."

It was only when a silence followed that he understood that he had shocked his companions with his sense of humour, again. Purebloods had such delicate sensibilities.

Hurriedly, Cygnus offered, "What about Hydrus?"

"The sea serpent?" Moody butted in, finally close enough to hear their conversation and provide his unwanted contributions to the conversation.

"A name for the child, then?" Crouch asked conversationally, politely nodding to them before turning to Orion and saying, "My felicitations, Lord Black. Do offer my regards to Lady Black and my mother's best wishes for the health of the child."

Crouch was a stiff, upright, young man with a serious face, dressed in an impeccably crisp set of dress robes and. The parting in his short blonde hair was almost unnaturally straight, and his narrow toothbrush moustache looked as though he trimmed it using a slide rule. His shoes were so very highly polished that it would be a shame if they became marred in any way.

Orion nodded graciously before answering Moody's question, looking down his nose at the Auror, "I decided to take the opinion of a few close friends regarding the naming, after all, a name is such an important part of a wizard." The implication that Moody was not a close friend and hence was not welcome was evident. Crouch clearly received his message as he tightened his lips a little but did not seem to take much offence to it as names _were_ indeed a very important part of a Magical child.

Moody might have preferred action to words, but he was Pureblood enough to know that it was the polite version of saying Get Lost and hence said disdainfully, "Considering we're not welcome, we might as well be on our way. Come Barty."

As they made their way away from them, Lucretia Prewitt asked her brother with a slight curl of her lips that did nothing to detract from her looks, "What's the use of this when everyone here knows that you won't chose a single name you announce for the real name. And Walburga has already decided to name him Cepheus Pollux Black as the public name."

Abraxas smirked at that but Voldemort paid no attention to him, instead keeping his eyes fixed on Lucretia's face. As she had spoken the name, he had felt the chills of premonition strike him. Ordinarily, he would pay no attention to it, indeed, if someone else had told him anything about simply having a feeling, he would have cursed them for wasting his time, but he just knew. This Cepheus Black was going to be important to him, and he didn't like it. The last time he had such a feeling, it had been about Dumbledore, and he well knew how that had turned out. He would just have to keep an eye on the brat, he decided, he'd know everything with time. And time was something he had a lot of.

* * *

In London, in a Muggle Street, there was a row of numbered houses. It was perfectly normal, except what the residents had termed a mistake. After Number Eleven, instead of Number Twelve, came Number Thirteen. But they were wrong. Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place did exist, and in the master chambers of thae House, the Lady of the house smiled as she felt the magical fluctuation around the child in her womb. Her child, her little Cepheus, finally had a soul.

He was finally alive.

**A/N: I'm going to be changing a few dates at the start and that's it. Everything else will happen in the course of the story. The rating's probably going to change later on, but right now it's a T.  
**


	2. curses and poisons

Disclaimer: I'm black haired, black eyed and still living with my parents. Do you still think I'm J K Rowling?

Beta:Azakial

**A/N: I want to say this after Rosier wrote the review. I'm having Cepheus being born in 1963 while Regulus is born in 1961 (as in the Black family tree). So Cepheus is going to be younger.**

**Thanks to Rosier, Stardust of Orion, history, Ebru Raveniz Gunduz Lestrange, Lulu V, lostfeather1, dogsby for their reviews. **

Chapter 1

_Lord Voldemort, aka Tom Riddle, is a self-satisfied, cruel, vindictive, slightly maniac man with the tendency to smirk and look as if he's going to start laughing diabolically any moment. Lord Voldemort, aka Snake hybrid gone wrong, was a fully insane, wand happy sadist specializing in gruesome torture who was obsessed with a boy young enough to be his grandson ever since he was born. If I happen to conveniently leave out the fact that he happened to want to off me in spectacularly, horrible, nauseating, **painfully tragic** ways, it sounds quite a lot like he was simply a pervert and not out to bag himself a wee little Chosen One corpse. Yes, that's what I think I'll do. It's bound to keep him away. Imagine the scandal it would cause for someone aiming for a dignified political career… unmarked except for the occasional bloody splotch that is! _

_-An Excerpt from the journal of Cepheus Pollux Black_

December 20 1963

Lord Voldemort had noticed a few changes in himself these few years. He had noticed how his mind seemed to get fogged up whenever he was under the grips of intense emotion, how he seemed to obsess over the smallest of things and how he missed the simplest ideas that would have struck him otherwise. But somehow, it never seemed to matter much.

Now, as he looked at the glass of firewhiskey in his hands, he wondered if he really had made a mistake. If it hadn't been cowardice that had stopped the Dark Lords and Ladies before him from going as deep down the path of immortality as he had but wisdom. From a child prodigy to a magical genius, he had always been manipulative and cunning, working his way into the society that was his inheritance and yet would be denied to him and all because he was a Half-blood. He had planned and schemed, being charming to the teachers, friendly to the students, helpful to the Slytherins and threatening to his followers. He had lied and coveted, killed and tortured, and yet one thing that had always been constant was his brain. He had always been the smartest, the one with the most knowledge, the one who would do anything to know more. And yet, he could feel the degradation of his mind, the snipping of the threads that held him together as time passed, but couldn't bring himself to care. And that was something that sent a sense of disquiet through him.

There was a pop and he straightened up, shaking off his musings, now was not the time for these thoughts. His loyal house-elf, Blipsy, the one who was secretary, housekeeper and spy, all in one bowed to him and said, "Lord Black is here to see you, Master."

He nodded and she popped out again. Blipsy was different from other house-elves, as if anything he had wouldn't be completely unique and magnificent. She had perfect articulation and a complete understanding of grammar. He had made sure of that right after buying her. He waited impatiently for Black to make his way to his study. It was a wood panelled study, with a petrified wood antique bureau in the centre of the room, and a throne like chair behind it. The room had bookshelves against the walls, full of books that were warded and keyed to his magic. The carpet was a dark violet, almost black colour with silver threads running through it. There was no real window but a part of the wall behind him showed the outside. It looked a lot like the Hogwarts Great Hall ceiling and had been planned to do so. Right now, it showed the inky darkness outside, without even a star to light the sky, just the way he liked it.

There was a knock on the door and he said, "Enter."

Cygnus Black entered the room and bowed a little. Voldemort didn't invite him to sit; this wasn't a meeting for pleasure but for business. He asked silkily, "And what have you for me?"

Black said calmly though a bit stiffly, "Father has offered to help in the Wizengamot if we manage to get the matter till there. Until then, he has said he will neither help nor hinder us. Dumbledore is too strong right now and there are rumours about a Vote of No Confidence being passed. Father is not willing to risk his position at this time."

Voldemort's eyes grew cold, a red tint appearing in them and he let out his magic to play. He was angry at the anticipated yet unwelcome refusal of the Minister.

Black shivered a little as he felt the dark lord's magic rub against his own, in a facsimile of an embrace. The Dark Lord's aura engulfed him and _squeezed._ For a few long moments he feared the magic would crush him, but finally, it eased on the pressure though it didn't vanish.

His lord asked him in a voice that clearly expressed his displeasure, "Tell me, Cygnus. Does your father _know_ what motion I want passed in the Wizengamot? Tell me, have you betrayed your Lord's confidence? Was I wrong in trusting you to keep my secrets without marking you? Is that what is needed? A very short leash to keep you contained?"

Cygnus shook his head and said quickly, hoping to avoid getting Crucioed for his failure , "No, my lord. The Light Wizards have been protesting ever since father voted for the Compulsory Heritage Registration Act, even though it didn't pass. They don't want a Minister who is willing to do what needs to be done about the Mudbloods, hence the hesitance of my father to go directly against Dumbledore at this time. The old fool is after all who is behind all of this."

The Dark Lord smirked darkly at that and asked in amusement, "Is that what you really think? That Dumbledore is the one behind the whole Mudblood idea? The same Dumbledore whose father went to prison for Muggle baiting, the same one who wrote a book on Purity of Blood? No," his lord said with a small shake of his head.

"It isn't Dumbledore, despite his fondness for Muggles. He's just a bleeding heart who if afraid to take the strict measures needed to grind the whole situation into dust. It's someone else who is taking advantage of the old fool's willingness to defend everyone who isn't Dark, someone that he no doubt is aware of."

His lord seemed to read the contention on his face despite his hiding it as he asked, "Do you disagree, Cygnus? Perhaps you have some notion that Dumbledore is the evil that hides behind colourful robes and lemon candies?"

Cygnus was thankful that the Dark Lord seemed to have been diverted from his earlier line of questioning and hoping to continue keeping the discourse on the current topic and not his failure to get the job done, he argued, "Dumbledore is a manipulative old man who knows entirely too much to have gained the information through the proper channels. He always had his hands in too many pies, guiding everyone like a puppet master, nudging others to do his dirty work for him. The man does nothing on his own, always making everyone else do it for him. Worse, he hides the fact that he isn't the genial old man who only wishes for the wellbeing of everyone."

"The Greater Good," his lord murmured with a small smirk. "That is what Dumbledore always says, yet how surprising, isn't it, how his old nemesis had the very same motto inscribed over his stronghold? The same stronghold he is currently kept captive in?"

Cygnus understood perfectly well what his lord was getting at but couldn't understand why his lord still refused to believe that the man was behind it all. Was it some belief in the man's morality that made his lord think that the old Headmaster wouldn't commit such heinous deeds? He debated over asking but before he could reach a conclusion, there was a pop as a house-elf appeared in the study of Gaunt Manor, the manor that his lord had gained through murder and blackmail alike from the family it had been sold to when the Gaunts had been in financial distress.

The house-elf bowed to the Dark Lord and said deferentially, "An elf from the House of Black is here, master."

Voldemort lifted an eyebrow at him and he said, "Maybe Druella needs something."

Voldemort lazily waved a hand at the elf and it vanished. Cygnus took that to mean that he was to go on with the report and was thankful that the rest of his mission at least had been successful. "There has been dissension in the ranks of the Aurors since a lot of them are being let off as the Department is being reduced. They might be amenable to a new order, especially if they're guaranteed work. The French Ambassador has responded well to the questions that I have asked. They have a similar kind of ministry after all."

His Lord nodded musingly and then asked out of the blue, "What do you think, will Abraxas be able to get the communities to support him?"

Cygnus suppressed a sneer. Malfoy was a horrible, vain, brain dead fool whose sole interest was his looks. Everyone knew his father had trained his wife for the management of the estate. He sometimes wondered why his lord allowed the fool to undertake important missions but then again, the Malfoy name went far, especially since he had married the Van Deus heiress. He caught his Lord's eye and said diplomatically, "He might but his mother wasn't very popular in the Veela communities. And his half-sister leads the French communities now."

His lord smirked and started saying something when with two loud pops, one after the other, two elves landed in front of them. He recognised Kreacher, the house elf that his sister had taken from their house after her marriage and froze. Why would his sister's house-elf come here, to meet him like this? Especially after he had no doubt been informed that his message had to wait? He didn't have to wait long to know.

His lord had risen to his feet, wand in hand when Kreacher shouted, "Mistress's being poisoned! And Master's not in country!" Cygnus could almost _feel_ the blood rushing out of his face.

"My lord!" he pleaded. The dark lord looked displeased but nodded his dismissal and Cygnus rushed to hold Kreacher's hand as he ordered, "Take me to her."

With a pop they were gone. Voldemort asked Blipsy nonchalantly, "Can all elves do that?"

Blipsy asked, "Do what, master?"

"Apparate in and out of my wards without any problem?" Voldemort clarified.

Blipsy nodded hesitantly. Voldemort looked at her and intoned softly, "Crucio."

The screams were like music to his ears. It was one thing, not casting the Cruciatus on Black because he had failed to do what he hadn't expected him to succeed in anyway. It was something completely different to allow Blipsy to go unpunished for having left such a glaring gap in his wards.

Walburga looked at the ballroom filled with people and smirked behind her glass of pumpkin juice. Though she would have liked to have drunk some of the fine wines that were being served in her Yule celebration, she knew it wasn't good for little Cepheus and hence refrained. This little inconvenience did nothing to take away from her pleasure at seeing such a full room. It was a credit to her as the hostess.

She chatted with the other Pureblood Witches that were around her and hoped that her brother Alphard hadn't somehow managed to make a fool of the Black name. She wouldn't put it past him at all, but as she sneaked a glance over at the host for this party, she was glad to find that her good-for-nothing brother was at least not being bad-for-anything. She would have preferred her husband to be here as well but she had been raised properly and knew that sometimes work had to take precedence over pleasure. At least he would still be home for the solstice.

As she deftly finished the conversation and looked for another clump of guests to grace with her presence, she saw her sisters-in-law and mother-in-law talking with a group of ladies at the side of the room, she decided to go over and join them. She made a beeline for them and sat in one of the empty chairs next to the. Lucretia smiled at her and said in amusement, "If I had known you were going to host alone, I would have offered to co-host."

Walburga grit her teeth together and held in a grimace, "While that is very kind of you, I assure you I am perfectly capable of handling everything on my own."

Her mother-in-law Melania said in a matter-of-fact tone, "Of course, Walburga. I would expect nothing else out of a member of my family."

Walburga mentally bemoaned that statement. She had planned to ask Druella to take over her duties for a while since being on her feet for so long was painful but she couldn't possibly do so now, could she? It would be tantamount to saying she wasn't worthy of being the future Lady Black. She felt like swearing obscenities but she couldn't possibly do that either. After all, ladies were always proper, decorous, and apposite and never ever, swore.

Lucretia spoke up, "Walburga has always been talented but it really isn't proper for you to leave your guests alone just to come and speak with us. There is no need to abandon your guests for us, dear."

Walburga nodded and stood up even though she wanted to do anything but and said, "Do accompany me then, dear. I am sure your husband would appreciate your efforts to further his interests. I know how it gets for those in the Department of International Magical Cooperation."

It was a direct barb. Everyone knew that the marriage had hit rock bottom when their first born was born a red head when both her parents had been brunettes. Though the twins had been of the proper colouring, it hadn't managed to salvage the marriage and now Ignatius Prewitt spent more time outside the house than inside it. Lucretia's eyes flared a little but she smiled in a predator like fashion and said calmly, "I would love to, except I wouldn't want to take away from your image. I don't mean to offend, but you aren't likely to come off very well compared to me, what with your condition."

Walburga felt the urge to throttle the woman but throttling her sister-in-law in public simply wasn't done. How dare she make her little Cepheus come off as a slightly contagious, highly ostracised disease! He was a darling and she didn't even show very much through her robes unless one knew what to look for!

Melania intervened and said lightly but it was obvious that it was a command from the matriarch of the family, "Lucretia dear, why don't you handle Alphard's affairs. It seems almost as if the little dear is making business transactions with Vera Skeeter."

Walburga blanched a little. Who knew what the man was telling the reporter! One would have expected motherhood to have softened the woman a little, but it seemed to have done the exact opposite and now the woman was like a siren, charming everyone into spilling their guts till they were in her clutches and then drowning them, taking little bites out of them all the while. Lucretia looked a little mutinous but hurried off all the same. Walburga nodded at Melania before making to walk off but she stopped at the very first step, feeling a wave of dizziness pass through her. Wasn't that supposed to happen when she first got up and not when she made to walk? She felt a hand catch hold of her arm and steady her. She opened her eyes when her mother-in-law spoke, not even aware of when she had closed them in the first place, "Are you all right, Walburga? The exertion might have been too much for you."

The woman looked truly concerned, as much as a Pureblood in a public place could at any rate, but she still made to tell her that she was fine when a sharp pain went through her abdomen. She paused, that didn't seem at all right. She waited, hoping that it was contractions, but the next wave of pain got rid of the notion. That wasn't what having a child felt like, a very necessary component was missing and she was starting to feel slightly warm.

"Is that sweat running down your face?" she heard Druella ask except everything seemed to be wrapped in a layer of cotton and the sounds seemed very far away. The last thought that ran through her mind before she fainted was that she hoped little Cepheus was all right.

Druella caught her sister-in-law and friend as the woman collapsed backward, laying her down on the carpet slowly.

"House elves." It was an imperious command from Lady Black that was followed instantly.

The house elves all instantly popped in as Druella cast a cooling charm on Walburga, at a loss as to what to do for the unconscious woman. She was thankful for Melania's unflappable cool as the woman sent elves to get a healer from Mungo's, a few to find her son, and two to make her daughter-in-law comfortable. The elves assigned the last duty quickly came over and levitated Walburga before leading her out of the ballroom and deeper into the house.

Melania turned to the roomful of people who were silent as they watched and addressed them in a stately manner, "The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black cordially thanks you for attending our Yule celebrations and our hopes that the next time you are all assembled in this house, it is for a more eventless evening. The elves will be able to lead you to the Floo connected fireplaces." She gave a chilly smile as the remaining two elves bowed. It was a clear dismissal and it was taken as one when she swept out of the room, as the assembled Purebloods made their way to the designated house-elves, murmuring lowly all the while. Alphard and Lucretia came over to her and they together greeted the exiting guests, listening to their remarks, giving vague answers to their inquiries and thanking them for their well-wishes.

When the last guest was gone, Druella said hesitantly, "Someone ought to tell Cygnus."

Alphard said loudly, "Kreacher!"

A pop and a house elf popped into the room and bowed as it said, "What may Kreacher be doing for the nasty man who is not Kreacher's Master?"

Alphard took no notice of the elf's words and said, "Tell Cygnus that Walburga's probably been poisoned and to get here as soon as possible."

"Poisoned?" echoed Lucretia. Alphard nodded and said, "I know my sister. She doesn't faint. At all."

And that was explanation enough as they hurried after Melania.

**A/N: I haven't checked it over for mistakes yet as i updated as soon as I finished. Cepheus/Harry is going to be introduced in the next chapter.  
**

**Happy Independence Day! **

******B/N: All checked and all's well. I apologise for the long wait for me to check it over, but there are very few mistakes that I could find, and none would make this story any less enjoyable to read. I hope that everyone is enjoying this story as much as I am! ~ Azakial **


	3. elves, babies and spells

**Disclaimer: I'm black haired, black eyed and still living with my parents. Do you still think I'm J K Rowling?**

**A/N: Thank you to lostfeather1, Son of Whitebeard, Miss Nailia , Sweet Moments, RaawrTastic, Stardust of Orion, Rosier for your reviews. They made me write the chapter in four hours, a really fast speed for me. **

Chapter 2

December 20 1963

They rushed to the master's bedroom at the top of the house and entered together. There was a brief scuffle as both Alphard and Druella tried to enter at the same time but Druella stepped back and let Alphard rush to his sister. Melania looked up from where she was stroking Walburga's forehead, trying to calm the woman. There was a frown on Walburga's face and she looked as if she was in pain, with eyes screwed shut. She looked small on the huge bed and particularly fragile as she twisted and turned her head, clutching the counterpane tightly, fingers pale and bloodless.

"Has she really been poisoned?" Lucretia asked with slightly morbid curiosity.

"Do not be fanciful. Why would anyone want to poison her? Not to mention everything she took came from the hands of the family elves. They would never betray us." Melania scolded harshly.

Druella let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. For a second there, she had thought Walburga really had been poisoned. But she proved to be too hasty as Alphard asked rudely, "Then why does my sister look so awful?"

Judging from the pinched up look on Lady Black's face, she didn't like the rudeness Alphard displayed but she nonetheless said, "The exertion must have been too much for the woman. We must not forget that she is in a delicate condition."

Lucretia spoke up, drawing her mother's attention, "She clutched her stomach before fainting, almost as if it pained her."

Melania took in a breath and then slowly let it out before speaking. "When a mother perceives any danger, she will always check to make sure that her child is alright. That is simply what happened."

"Witches don't faint while pregnant if they are in places full of magicals. She fainted at the Yule party!" Alphard said slightly hysterically.

"Well, what do you want me to say?" Melania asked scornfully. "That she has been poisoned and will probably die as well as lose the child?"

There was a sharp intake of breath and it was only when Melania's eyes flashed to her that Druella realised that it had come from her. But Melania didn't pay any more attention to her, instead focusing her bright green eyes on Alphard as she said inexorably, "We know nothing of that sort and unless we do, we are going to assume that this is simply an accident that the healer will fix. There is no need for **_building a castle on a lake when the water hasn't been frozen yet."_****_1_**

Alphard looked mutinous but Druella clutched her brother-in-law's arm as she told him slowly, "There is nothing we can do even if she has been poisoned. We wouldn't which poison has been used and there are some poisons whose effects are intensified by a bezoar. All we can do now is wait for the healer to make haste and come here."

Alphard swallowed his protests at that though it seemed to pain him to do so and nodded at her before turning to Melania and saying in a choked voice, "My apologies, Madam. I simply couldn't bear the thought that my sister had been hurt while I was there with her and hence struck out in my fear."

Melania inclined her head regally before freezing, the hand that had continued its ministrations on Walburga's forehead pausing, losing rhythm then resuming, except there seemed to be something panicked and hasty about the movements now. Druella couldn't take her eyes off that hand, at the slight shake in those long fingers, and the slight quiver that was visible for just a moment before being firmly controlled.

"What did you see, Mother? What's happening to her magic?" Lucretia asked urgently.

Druella's eyes shot to Lady Black at that pronouncement. _See? _She wondered dazedly. What was there to see?

Melania replied, "Walburga's magic has detached itself from the child's. It won't be long before her body does the same."

Lucretia finally voiced what they were all thinking, "You mean the baby's… coming…now?"

Melania nodded before fixing piercing eyes on Alphard and saying in a firm voice, "Out."

"But," Alphard made to protest but Melania spoke over him, "I am Lady Black and you are a member of the Black Family, standing in a Black holding. You will go now to the nursery and stay there till you are called for or I will simply throw you out of the house. Is that understood?"

Alphard gritted his teeth but gave a jerky nod. He took one last look at his sister lying there in the middle of the bed before striding out of the room and to the nursery on the floor below. He stopped before a deceptively normal looking wall before pressing his thumb to a grove on the wallpaper that no one without Black Blood would be able to see. He felt a pinch as his blood was drawn and suddenly the wall wasn't there anymore. He knew that anyone who hadn't been keyed would not be able to enter the room where the future of the Black family lived. This was the heir's house after all, just like Black Manor in Norway was the Lord's house after the Heir had started taking on some of the responsibilities of the day to day management so that Lord Black could pay more of his attention to the international scene.

He made his way to the set of rooms where he knew his nephews were sleeping and gently opened the door, letting a sliver of light enter the room, so as to be able to see them yet not wake the little boys up. He looked at them, Regulus sleeping on his stomach while Sirius slept with abandon, arms and legs thrown haphazardly all over his bed. Leaning against the door hinge he thought wretchedly about the little boy that would probably never sleep with them, the little boy that no one would ever talk about. He sighed, he could only hope that a healer came fast enough who was skilled at these things. Then he wondered how on earth Lady Black had known that the child's magic had detached itself from Walburga's. He found it much easier to muse upon this mystery than the fact that up there, his sister was losing her child and maybe even her life, because he didn't believe that Walburga hadn't really been poisoned. He had seen her with that goblet she had been taking sips out of, seen how she had pursed her lips a little after the first sip As if she didn't like the taste very much, and most importantly, seen how minutes after; she was unconscious on the floor. He might not have liked her very much, but she was still his sister and if there was anything that was the unofficial motto to the Blacks, it was this. Family was the most important.

Cygnus apparated in the foyer of 12, Grimmauld Place, the only place one could Apparate to inside the house and looked to Kreacher to lead him to his sister. Kreacher scurried off to the stairs and Cygnus refrained from the urge to shout at the elf to hurry up and simply apparate him to his sister's side but he knew that if Kreacher knew where Walburga was, he would have directly taken him to her. It was hard to do so though, as Kreacher seemed to move with a well-defined purpose, moving unerringly to the master's chambers at the very top of the house. He went to open the door but Druella's voice spoke, "You shouldn't do that."

He started a little though he hid it. He hadn't even seen the woman but now that he searched, he found that she was leaning against the wooden panelled walls of the hallway. With the low lighting and the dark purple colour of her robes, she seemed to almost sink into the walls, disappearing from view.

He asked her, "Why?"

She answered, "Lady Black is inside with the healer. She told all of us to leave. Lucretia has already gone home, from where she will go to Black Manor and then to _La Maison Noir _if she has to."

He asked after he had regained his composure, "How is she?"

Druella said, stoical, "She is as well as can be, though still unconscious. Currently they're working on the baby. He's premature, his magic is barely there. If he hadn't been through his first Samhain yet, he would have definitely had no chances at all."

"But Burga will be fine?" he asked, just to be sure. Druella nodded.

Just then, the sound of footsteps thundering up the stairs was heard and then Orion burst into view. "How are they?" he asked without taking a single breath.

"Burga is fine," Cygnus told his brother in law but I didn't seem to have much of a calming effect on the man as he then asked apprehensively, "But what about the baby?"

When he said nothing, Orion seemed to assume the worst and Druella told him hurriedly, "We don't know yet. He was born premature and there's something about his magic. That's why we are all here; he seemed to have some sort of reaction to our magic. But the Healer is trying her best."

Cygnus honestly didn't understand why the man was so worried about the boy. it wasn't as if he hadn't already had his Heir and Spare. But then again, Cygnus had realized, most people seemed to think of their children as something more than just necessary to carry on the line. Even Druella thought the same, when he had married her _because_ she had seemed so detached from these sorts of emotions.

They spent the next two hours waiting, Orion walking up and down the hallway, Druella leaning against the wall and Cygnus sitting in a chair he had one of the house elves bring. At long last, the door opened and Orion came to a halt and as Melania came out, he asked hoarsely, "Mother?"

Melania said calmly, "Both are fine. The healer is just finishing up right now."

Druella asked, "What happened?"

Melania didn't have to answer, as a woman with light brown hair exited the room behind her, dressed in healer robes. She answered the question with a gentle smile, "A food poisoning. It seemed the pumpkin juice Heiress Black had been drinking had spoiled and since she was already so overworked her immune system couldn't handle it and this happened."

"So she wasn't poisoned?" Cygnus asked in confusion. He had thought she had been poisoned.

"Oh, no," the healer replied with a shake of her head. "You could call it poisoning, but I doubt anyone would be able to deliberately poison someone using rotten pumpkin juice."

As the healer left, Orion entered the chamber, no doubt to be with his wife, but as Druella made to follow, Cygnus caught her arm and asked in a low tone, "Why did Kreacher tell me that Burga had been poisoned then?"

Druella shook her head ruefully, "It seems Alphard's first thought was that Walburga had been poisoned and that's what he told Kreacher to tell you. I went to talk to him later on and it seems he saw her drink the pumpkin juice and faint a few minutes later and thought instantly that something must have been in it to make it happen."

Cygnus shook his head but then sad reluctantly, "At least he was right about something, it was the pumpkin juice."

Druella nodded, before they both entered the room to see Walburga and their newest nephew. No one noticed that Melania had slipped away except the house elves, and it was none of their business if their erstwhile mistress wanted to sneak out of the house.

Melania landed gracefully as the Portkey that led to Edgar Bones' hunting lodge, that now belonged to her, dropped her in the foyer of the lodge. It was a handsome structure, situated in the wilderness of the Irish countryside, two storeyed, with seven bedrooms, a dining room, two living rooms and a trophy room. But it wasn't the house that interested Melania right now; it was the forest right outside. She made her way to the very edge of the wards and then did something that she had done only twice in her life. She collected the magic from all around her, pulled some from the grass, the trees, the rocks, the very air itself, and wrapped it in her own aura, making it feel just like her. Then she focused on imprinting it with the message she wanted to pass on, working hard as the magic seemed to pulse and fight against her, but she was Melania Black, nee McMillan, Lady Black, and she wasn't going to be showed up by a tiny fluff of magic. Minutes passed, or was it hours? Before she was convinced that the magic would pass on exactly what she wanted to and then came the hardest part. She recalled that old, half blurred, but never fully forgotten feel of magic. That of crushed leaves, pine needles and dew drops in the morning. That of pale sunlight starting to warm up the tree trunks and of underwater weeds. That of her father. She gave it all to the magic now bubbling in her hands and then let go. She watched as the magic passed through the wards, entered the air right outside, paused, seemingly confused, then split up, rushing away in tiny little specks of light that were soon too far away for her to see. She thanked magic for gracing her with the gift that generations of McMillans had possessed, that made theirs the only clan capable of rearing the Demiguise in the British Isles, that of mage sight. She was going to need it, just like she was going to need the help of her real father. For the message she had sent off was so simple that it was dangerous in its deception.

_Shade is back. And this time, it's after my grandson, just like it was after my sister._ He sister was dead but she would be damned before she let her grandson go the same way. For Healer kern had lied for her. There had been poison in the pumpkin juice, but of the type that affected only a few kinds, especially her father's kind, the kind that she was afraid little Cepheus was. She took one last look at the night sky before turning and entering the house. She flooed back to Black Manor in Norway. She needed the comfort that only being at home with the people you trust can provide. She was getting too old for these types of warfare.

When Sirius and Regulus woke up the next morning, it was to the news that they had a new little brother. Orion was sure that for Regulus, it was akin to having a puppy or maybe a toy, but Sirius looked sulky. He was sure the look on his face would bring nothing but trouble. Sirius might have been just three but he still had the spark that Alphard's eye had, the spark that had been why he had had three castration hexes cast at all by the same person in the name of ensuring his sister's future happiness.

March 20 1964

The next three months passed quite sedately, as sedately as time at a house with a new-born child inside could pass with at least. Cepheus was a little fussy but most children were and Walburga proudly proclaimed that it was simply the boy showing his discerning Black nature. While Lucretia gritted her teeth and endured and Cygnus tuned out all the words that the doting mother said, Orion had no such recourse and hence most of the time he was inside the house with his two elder children, who were getting heartily ignored by their mother. This brought Sirius even closer to the man while Regulus just insisted that id he was the 'bes' whizzy', Walburga would pay attention to him again. Orion didn't know what to say to that and finally decided to speak to Walburga about it. She was playing with Cepheus toes when he went to speak to her and she paid him no attention till he had repeatedly spoken her name. Finally she looked up with an irritated expression on her face and asked, "What?"

Orion took no offence to her rudeness and suggested mildly, "Don't you think you are paying too little attention to the little boys downstairs?"

Walburga blinked a few times before asking in consternation, "Do you think so?"

When Orion just nodded, she looked a little discomfited and said, "I didn't realize."

He smiled at her and said, "I know."

She felt compelled to explain herself and told him, "It's just that whenever I take my eyes off him, I fear that he's just going to disappear, or hurt himself or maybe something bad would happen to him and then I can't move away anymore."

"Why don't you spend just an hour with Sirius and Regulus tomorrow? The elves are perfectly capable of looking after Cepheus and if you want, I could come and watch him for a while. Not to mention, the boys' rooms are just down the hall and we would be able to hear Cepheus," he suggested.

Walburga looked conflicted but finally nodded. Orion walked away, feeling accomplished.

The next day, while he was about to put the boys to bed, there was a knock on the nursery door and Walburga walked in a moment after. She took in a deep breath before asking Sirius and Regulus, "How about Mother reads you a story before bed?"

Regulus nodded furiously while Sirius said yes more slowly. Orion watched as Walburga told the boys stories from Beedle the Bard and they slowly fell asleep. When she was sure that they were not going to wake up, she turned to him and asked mischievously, "Happy?"

He simply nodded before kissing his little children on the forehead and then they made their way to their chambers, a pleasant feeling burning just below his sternum. Little did he know his happiness was hoping to vanish so soon. When they entered their room and Walburga went over to the crib to check on Cepheus, she simply stood there, swaying a little, before saying in a faint voice, "Orion. Please ask the house elves if they've taken Cepheus."

Orion knew it just built on her fears of Cepheus disappearing if she took her eyes off him and resolved to punish the elf who took Cepheus harshly. But it didn't take long for them to realise that the only ones they could punish was themselves because no one had taken Cepheus. He was simply gone.

**A/N: From next chapter or so, Harry/Cepheus is going to remember his past lives since right now, he's just a three month old. So, do you want me to continue skipping POV's like I have been doing, or simply stick to Harry/Cephius'? As for the ending of the chapter, I'm sorry if it seems a little rushed, it was. I wanted to skip to the next part but this had to be written too. If you remember the Prologue, you'll probably guess what's going to happen now. Melania is going to be pretty important too. You'll find out what everyone really looks like when Harry does, including what he himself looks like.**

**To Rosier: There is Aariya07's - Hollow Thunder, Vital Lightning but it didn't involve all the Blacks as much as Growing Up Black did, which is the only story I've read among the ones you mentioned. It's a time and dimension travel story too.**


	4. Potion Masters and Kidnappers

**Disclaimer: I'm black haired, black eyed and still living with my parents. Do you still think I'm J K Rowling?**

**A/N: I'll just like to point out that all the things you'll find in the end of this chapter are simply products of my imagination and don't actually happen in truth. No doubt there are rituals but I didn't actually do any research on them and simply made them out of my head since that is really simple and I don't have time for anything too complicated right now. My exams started today and will continue till the 4****th**** and that leaves only half an hour for writing every day. **

**Now, more importantly, I got 15 reviews. Yayyy! Thank you everyone who read my story but most importantly, thank you lostfeather1, history, Miss Nailia, Hadrian Malfoy, Seraphinus, NotaFro, RaawrTastic, Stardust of Orion, Lemrinth, LilBka, kittyhawk09 , noelnoel2 , Rosier, dogsby, aliengirlguy for reviewing.**

Chapter 3

March 21 1964

Melania looked over the room, cursing herself for leaving the house, but after two months of living at her son's, both Orion and Walburga had gotten tired of it. Arcturus hadn't minded much, but then again, he didn't mind much, except maybe his parents, if one were to believe the rumours. She couldn't see anything that the Aurors wouldn't have seen too, but then again, they were professionals, they probably saw a lot more than she had.

Orion asked, twisting his hands together, "Can you see anything? Can you recognise anyone? You know I can't actually see traces left over, only what is here now."

She felt like cursing herself. Of course Orion wouldn't call her to look things over after the Aurors had already bee. He would only call her to do detection work if she had something the Aurors didn't. Her sight, damn it.

She closed her eyes and concentrated inside herself, reaching out to her core. She brought the strings of magic out to her skin, covering every part of her body, but most importantly, her eyes. Theoretically, she could saturate every part of her body with the magic, but it wasn't something that she could do for more than a few minutes, and last time she had done it, she had landed in bed for three weeks for magical exhaustion. When she was sure that her eyes had a thick film of magic in front of them, which were still thin enough that she could see through, she opened her lids.

She could see her own self, sparkling purple, with concentrations of dark purple at various points, signifying her frustration at her inability to do anything. Orion was gold, the colour of success, achievement and triumph and blue, the colour symbolising depth and stability. Lucretia was silver, fluid, emotional, sensitive and mysterious. Yet she had streaks of black, showing that she kept it all bottled in. Walburga was read and indigo, sometimes forming purple, sometimes becoming orange. Everyone was different, everything was different, and every place was different. If you knew what someone looked like, you could even trail them, since everyone left a trace of themselves behind. Places showed what the people inside them had felt, what they had done, what changes they had gone through. Every room had a history, a personality, the walls could literally speak if you only knew how to listen, how to watch them show you everything they had seen.

Except there was nothing. She could see the brightness, she could feel the happy, emotions that had filled the chambers recently, yet, she could see no disturbance. She could see neither the fear, nor the indignation that Cepheus must have felt as he was taken, something that should have been there as by all accounts, he had been sleeping peacefully. There were many signs of people not family being in the room but that was expected as the Aurors had been through the entire house, combing for any sign the kidnapper had left, or maybe even Cepheus himself. She only wished that Orion had thought to call her before calling the Aurors. Maybe she could have found something.

Not one to give up, she decided to track Cepheus' signature. She remembered it, the white of innocence that all children were born with, with the slightest embers of magic popping up sometimes, colouring him blue. She couldn't find anything. Maybe it had been hidden beneath all the other imprints? After all, he was such a small life, so pale due to his premature birth as it was, with the magic just starting to show itself. So she looked even harder, bringing a thicker strand of magic across her eyes. It didn't do any good. She still couldn't find him. She frowned and turned to Orion.

"There have been too many people here. I'm trying to look for Cepheus' signature but it seems to be buried beneath all the other signatures here."

Orion looked pensive, before his eyes widened and he said, "You can go to his room. Walburga, Cepheus, the elves and I are the only ones who go to the room."

Melania nodded and followed her son to her grandson's room. It was just next door and soon she was inside the room and repeating the process to activate her mage sight as walking with it gave her a horrible headache and made her feel as if she was going to topple over any second. She looked for her grandson's distinctive signature when it was done. After all, in a house full of Dark Magic, his purity should have shone like a beacon. _Should have_ being the keyword. She couldn't find it. She was starting to get worried now. She could see energy and magic and emotions and Shade was supposed to have been able to manipulate all of them, but nowhere had she heard that Shade could make them disappear! Dampen, yes. Hide, yes, but that would have left some sort of signature of Shade itself but that didn't seem to be the case. In fact, it seemed like Cepheus didn't exist at all! She could see traces of Orion, and traces of Walburga, but Cepheus simply seemed to not exist at all!

She said the same to Orion who seemed to be looking even more worried by every word that left her lips. At the end, he simply asked, distraught, "Then what am I supposed to do? Walburga is dead set on blaming me for what has happened because she wouldn't have left him alone if it hadn't been for me and she even seems to be blaming Sirius and Regulus for Cepheus' disappearance!" he looked desperate for some sort of answer but what was she to say? She had been convinced that it was Shade's work, except there had been absolutely no sign of anyone except her son and daughter-in-law being in there. It could have been the house elves but they could not be possessed. She could almost believe it was either Orion or Walburga, but if it was them, surely Cepheus wouldn't have gone missing. One simple push, one pillow over his face, even a small fall and it would have been over. Not to mention, it would have made more sense to have done it while he was still weak, not now when he was on the mend, both magically and physically. It would have been a lot less suspicious. No, she told herself, it wasn't them. But then who could it be?

She asked, "Did the Aurors have any idea what to do?"

Orion looked frustrated as he said, "They planned to bring some sort of magical detector to track Cepheus, but they would need some sort of existing sample to work with and you said that he doesn't even seem to exist!"

That brought Melania's frantically moving thoughts to a halt as she asked cautiously, "Is that normal procedure?"

Orion looked surprised as he said, "Ever since Grindelwald came to England and roamed the entire country without anyone realising even though he left ample clues, yes, it has been."

Melania licked her suddenly dry lips as she thought of another who could have done this, "Do the _Aequalitas _ever leave their magical signature behind?"

Orion answered slowly, "No. which is why the Light and Neutral fractions refused to accept that they are anything but a myth. You don't think…"

But she did think and he knew it, by the deathly pallor of his skin as he said, "And the children are simply found somewhere else in the house and everyone thinks they simply didn't check well enough, especially since the children are usually old enough to move."

"What I can't understand is why they would want to kidnap a new-born baby especially in such a conspicuous manner," she muttered, pacing in frustration.

"But even if they did, how are we going to find him?" Orion asked.

"I don't know!" she said, throwing her hands up.

"Well, you were there when Grindelwald was at the height of his power, weren't you? You must know some sort of technique used to find out the missing people!" Orion burst out desperately.

"Well, we usually tried to hamper the efforts," she told him. "So, no, I don't."

"Lady Van Dues!" he said. "She's bound to know something, her father being who he was."

Melania tilted her head and said musingly, "Well, they _were_ particularly good at hiding everything. It stands to reason she'd know what precautions had to be taken for what spell. Yes," she said decisively. "You will Floo Malfoy Manor and ask Mrs Malfoy for help while I make use of the contacts that I have."

Orion nodded. "What are you waiting for? Go," she told him in irritation. As she watched the man turn and run, she wondered how she had ever birthed such a bunch of Hufflepuffs. Never mind, she told herself. It was time to drag someone into the whole case, whether he wanted to be of help or not didn't particularly matter.

She went to Floo connected Fireplace in the Living room, instead of the one in the library since she was sure that was the one Orion was going to use and threw some of the glittering Floo powder into the fireplace. Stepping into the now green flames, she said assertively, "Prince Manor," and then she was gone in a rush of spinning flames.

Lepidus Prince was hunched over his cauldrons, making two poisons, The Blood Thickening and the Blood Thinning, simultaneously. The former made the blood coagulate till it finally caused a heart attack and the latter thinned the blood so much that the amount of oxygen reaching the brain became so low that it finally died. As the Blood Thickening reached the characteristic scarlet colour and a moment later, the Blood Thinning its midway stage of pale lavender, he grinned to himself, proud of his multitasking skills. If there was one thing he had never been ashamed of, it was his Potions skills. Yes, he knew that he wasn't actually going to be using them and yes, he also knew that if anyone found out, he was bound to get in trouble, but it didn't matter. He could still dream and dreaming for him involved copious amounts of the worst poisons being force fed to certain people. One of whom was at his Floo parlour, little did he know it.

It was only when there was a small dainty cough behind him, though even Salazar was unlikely to know how a cough could sound dainty, that he realized that there was someone in his brewing chambers other than him. He cast a stasis charm on his potions before turning around and barking, "What are you doing here, you fool? Do you have slugs for brains, you senseless dolt? Do you even know what…" he petered off. The sight of Melania Black in his potions Brewing Chamber was enough to make even the bravest of men peter off, especially with the look she was currently sporting. He gulped. He was Lepidus Prince, Lord Prince of the Ancient family of Prince, holder of the Order of the Asphodel, Second Class awarded to only the most exemplary of Potion Makers, but one look from those emerald eyes and he was returned to the days of his youth when Melania McMillan was the prettiest of the ladies and he one of those cavalier youths who followed after her like a puppy only to be whipped into proper shape every time she caught any of them making any unseemly insinuations by a good old Blood Boiling Curse. When she smiled at him, he swore he could see her sharp canines and for a wild moment was tempted to throw his potions on her but then he got his nerves into control and said dourly, carefully keeping his face as annoyed as he could make it, "What are _you_ here for?"

Melania stopped smiling thankfully and said brusquely, "I require special assistance that you are going to be providing me with."

"And why will I be doing that?" he asked suspiciously.

"Out of the goodness of your heart?" she suggested.

He scoffed and then she offered, "Because I could get you Raffesia petals?" Raffesia petals were wonderful substitutes for human blood and flesh in those pesky little potions that required them but very few people grew them because they stank up the whole county and required a regular supply of blood. Not to mention, the magical version of the Rafflesia plant was completely illegal. It was tempting but he took a firm hold of himself and said, "Forget it."

Melania's eyes seemed to grow flinty and she said a moment later, "Then maybe you ought to consider that my Sister-in-law Lycoris is in the Department for the Regulation of Experimental Breeding?"

He tried to bluff, "And what does that have to do with me?"

Her chilly eyes looked at him for a moment before calling his bluff and she said, "We both know that most of your potions never work as well as they do when someone else's making them because your private Greenhouse is a storehouse for new and undiscovered species… perhaps because they never existed before they were born in your care?"

He gave in with ill grace, his experiments couldn't be uprooted and hidden in the time it would take for Lycoris Black to get a warrant and visit him, not without suffering through too many losses. "What?"

The approving expression on her face made him think that maybe he should have taken the risk anyway; after all, he could take the losses.

The War in Europe had caused many losses, and even though Britain had refrained from being directly involved for the longest time, it had suffered as well. Many shops had closed when the demand for the products they made had gone down. People had been let off, many had gone bankrupt and the Ministry had been hard pressed as to what to do. It was during this time that the then Minister, Harfang Longbottom, in an effort to provide jobs as well as ensure that he was voted in for another term, started increasing the Departments and the number of people they employed. The Misuse of Muggle Artefacts, The Accidental Magic Reversal Squad-The Muggleborn Division, The Internal Investigations, and more had been Departments and Sub-Departments started where people who had all of a sudden found themselves unemployed could find something gainful to do. But as a result, many of the old shops that had been closed never reopened and after a while the fact that they were simply there, empty for a long time, became a matter everyday knowledge.

There were many such shops at Blue Collar Alley, just off Diagon Alley, also known as Workers Alley. It was where people had gone when they wanted artisans and craftsmen who would make small trinkets; do repair work and even help over at the house when the people found some sort of complication they couldn't fix. It had been a place where middle class families had shopped and also where youngsters went to get experience before they could get accepted by a Master. All that had changed with the European War, Middle Class families had become poor; many previously rich families became strictly Middle Class. The depression hit and soon enough the motto became _save_ and not _spend_. Even now, many shops were still empty and it was doubtful that they would ever open since the workers, manufacturers and the consumers had found alternatives.

It was in one such shop that a baby could be seen lying on his back, fast asleep. While that was strange enough, the accruements around the baby were even stranger. There were shapes made of some dark, viscous liquid all around him, with strange writing in between the shapes. There was first a circle, then an oval, then a triangle, then a square all the way up to a heptagon, each former being enclosed within the latter. The writing seemed to writhe where it was drawn, making it difficult to read. There were lit candles on each corner of the heptagon, with a similar shape just across, only it was drawn only up to a pentagon and the person inside it was a man. The man was nothing special, just an ordinary man with dark hair; dark eyes and a bone structure that did nothing to give his face a distinctive feature. Directly across, forming a line with the filled heptagon was another filled pentagon. There was a woman inside it who was chanting something. Her voice was hoarse, as if she had been speaking for some time and had a parched throat but could not wait to take a drink of water. She was nothing special either, her braided hair resembled the colour of flax and her eyes, which were currently closed, were a light brown. Both wore half robes above trousers, though whether that was due to necessity or preference, it was hard to tell.

After a couple more minutes, when the man was starting to look impatient, she finally stopped chanting and cut her palm lightly, dripping blood into a vial that she pulled out of her robes. She cast a calculating eye at the baby and then with one careful twist of her wrist, the vial had fallen on the baby's chest, shattering on impact. The baby frowned but did not wake up as the thick liquid spread out on his chest, covering a previous brown stain. It was obvious that he had been spelled asleep.

The man caught the woman's eye and nodded and as one, like people who had done the same thing enough number of times to anticipate every move of the other, they started casting, using their wands to make runes that though not visible, seemed to be very complex, gathering from the concentration on their faces. As they continued, the pentagons started to glow, not much, just enough to become slightly luminous. The baby wrinkled up his face, not liking what was happening even though it was asleep. Something bright and luminous, white yet silver started rising from his mouth which had opened up on its own. Over the baby's head, a black opening started to form, one that could be used as a gate to transport materials if the partner gate was formed on the other side, as was the case here. The bright silvery material started to enter the gate when it stopped, as if at the end of its tether. The couple watching were very surprised but they kept chanting as a similar silvery substance had come out of the gate and they knew that if they didn't complete their end, both the children, the one on their end, and the one on their partners' end would due.

But to no avail, the soul they were supposed to send through refused to adhere to their wishes and with one last pull, went back to where it had come from. There was a blast, an explosion of pure magic that rocked the building, brought the couple to their knees and sent the receptors at the Ministry into overdrive as they tried to find the point where the sudden influx of such strong magic had come from. The man and woman looked at each other and then at the area over the baby, where their gate had been but was no longer.

"We need to go," the woman said decisively.

"But what about the children?" the man asked shakily.

"The ministry will find this one and the other one is either alive or already on its death bed and nothing we do can change that."

The man looked unsure but finally lifted his wand and cast a spell in Ancient Sumerian that wiped away his any trace of his magic. When he was done, the woman did the same thing and then spelled the pyjamas of the baby clean. It wouldn't do to leave a blood sample behind. They collected everything they had brought, cleaned any trace of them, and were out of the old shop in record time. Down the steps and out of the building they went, walking out of the place till they got out of Blue Collar Alley and into Diagon Alley proper. They made their way to the Leaky Cauldron where the man nodded affably to Tom the Bartender and then walked out into Muggle London.


	5. minds and souls

Disclaimer: I'm black haired, black eyed and still living with my parents. Do you still think I'm J K Rowling?

**A/N: Thank you Lemrinthfor, Miss Nailia, aliengirlguy, lostfeather1, dogsby, geetac, Vladimir Mithrander reviewing. I am sorry for the late update,but the chapter's longer to compensate.**

**Warning:Use of Cruciatus**

_Harry speaking using/to magic_

**_Voldemort speaking using/to magic_**

Chapter 4

March 21 1964

Harry hurt. There was no other way to state it. He hurt. His head hurt, his limbs hurt and even his thoughts hurt. He tried to take a deep breath, except he found out that he could feel neither his nose nor his lungs. He opened his mouth to make a sound, except… he didn't know where his mouth was. He tried to calm himself but without the deep breath, it didn't work very well. He tried to look around to found out where he was, but found only darkness. Was he dead? He tried to remember what had happened but his head or maybe something else since he couldn't actually figure out where his head was, started hurting. He tried to remember what Hermione would have said and then a pang of sorrow hit him as he remembered that she was dead. Most of his family was. He again tried to look around, this time trying to find out whether it was dark outside or if he simply hadn't opened his eyes yet, something that was quite possible since he couldn't actually feel them. Possible, if not probable.

This was starting to really worry him, and not a lot of things worried him anymore, especially after his children went and blew up the dungeons with the help of Fawkes. But his children were dead too, weren't they? Dead of the virus the Muggles had called simply the Pox Virus. A simple but very accurate name for that disease that had been one of the main reasons that more than half the population of the world was dead, the disease that not even Wizards could escape, only delay. So many wards, so many vaccinations, all fails. The Muggleborns had been the first to go, followed by those who had kept in close touch with the Muggles. By the time the deadliness of the Pox was realised and all contact with Muggles banned, the virus had already evolved and had spread from magical to magical. And who could imagine that it had been an effort to reduce fat intake and dissolve the excess fat that the body already had, an effort to make people thinner?

He wondered, was he dead of the disease too? He knew that only the purest of the Purebloods and the strongest of the Full Bloods had survived till the time he could remember. He tried to remember, but all that came to mind was an image of a Muggle children's interpretation of a ghost and a …_glowing figure made of sparkly lights? _

He tried to ignore that image, but it proved to be stubborn and stuck like a burr to the front of his mind till he finally decided to just pay it the attention it so clearly wanted just so it would go away. He let the image fill his inner eye, finding out the perplexing fact that the image actually seemed to be a part of a memory. Maybe of a dream? There was a sound like someone was Apparating and then suddenly, his mind was filled with images, sounds, _thoughts._

He tried to calm himself. He understood now. He was inside his own mind and the darkness was simply the blank canvas that he was supposed to fill with memories of all the lives he had gone through.

If he had been in connection with his body, he was sure that it would have been sweating buckets. The entire blank space was for him to fill. It was the astral space his part of the main soul occupied. He would have to work and find and sort through all the memories he had of the millenniums he lived since he couldn't keep all the memories in his physical body. He could only keep at most one personality in his physical body, as time passed and his body grew, even that would keep reducing, till he finally only had the most important memories of his previous lives in his physical body, everything else filled by his current persona.

He mused about who to be at the start, he would be damned if he actually behaved like a baby. Harry perhaps? He had been Regulus once, but since a Regulus would be there at the same time as him, he didn't want to do that. However, he didn't particularly want to be someone who knew absolutely nothing of the current time period because the last time he had a body before Regulus was during the eighteenth century. He had been a Muggle Born who had been murdered because he had been a Metamorphmagus, something that ran only in the Pureblood lines as blood had to mature before it could start manifesting special traits.

Yes, he rather thought he would start out as Harry, and then change as the times passed. And maybe, if he lived long enough, he could try to make sure the Harry who would be born wouldn't have to go through everything he had. That was a cheering thought and with an imagined frown of concentration, he started on his work. It was bound to take a lot of time. Now, which traits to pass onto his body… Occlumency for sure. Legilimency too. He wondered about the Parseltongue. As Harry, he had retained the ability to talk to snakes even after he got rid of the Horcrux, and now he knew it was because the Parseltongue had been integrated into his soul itself and as long he remembered being Harry, he'd always be able to understand Parseltongue. After a while, his magic itself would modify his vocal chords so that he would be able to speak it as well as understand it. He mused; Voldemort was alive during this time, wasn't he? It would certainly be useful if he could understand all the dastardly plots the man made with his familiar, since he had always had a propensity for talking a lot. He didn't think it would change much just because he was younger this time.

He imagined rubbing completely imaginary hands together as he set to work.

He would have panted if he could have. This was so hard. He was a Black this time and learning from the few other experiences he had had as a Black, he stored a few good Poker faces into his body. He wished he knew what his name was here. The last few times, he had simply died before being able to actually understand any words or anything. Indeed, he had just learnt to focus his eyes on things for longer than a few seconds, even though everything was simply a bunch of colours. He didn't fancy going back to such a state, but he held hopes that maybe this time, since he already knew the language and everything, the sounds at least would actually make some sort of sense.

He brought forth all the courage he possessed (or alternately, all the brainlessness as others had assured him), and went through the meditation technique he usually used to get out of his mind, the times he actually learnt Occlumency, that is. Slowly, he started to feel his body. He started hearing some sounds dimly, and just as he was about to congratulate himself on his success, he hit a snag. He could feel his limbs, heavy, fleshy weights that they were. He could hear some sounds, though the sound was quite dull and he didn't know whether that was because he couldn't hear properly or because there was no one else around him. He hoped it was the latter; he had always been fond of his hearing. He could even feel that he had left the astral mindscape and entered his physical mindscape since he couldn't actually remember his past lives so much. He was simply Harry who had been reincarnated a few times, not a bunch of different personalities with all the lives he had lived shoved together in a baby's head.

What he couldn't feel was his eyes. A part of his spirit was still not anchored to his physical body. He had no doubt at all that it was because of that wonky ritual. And out of all the parts that he could be unanchored to, it had to be his eyes. He focused on stuffing all of himself inside his body, feeling worried as he felt his magic fluctuate and grow weaker. He decided to ignore it for now till he was done. Now that most of him was actually in contact with his body as well as his mindscape, he was finding out that it actually hurt, _quite a lot_.

There! He was finally done, now all he had to do was find out how to open the visual senses of his mind, using which he could finally be able to open his eyes and see. He looked at the cluttered place his mindscape formed, a series of interconnected caves with trips and falls in place. There were treasure chests in place everywhere, with the strongest locks and wards he knew. But his memories weren't there. They were in the stalagmites and the stalactites, hanging off the roofs and growing up from inside nooks and crannies. The best part, they were linked to him. Only he could touch them and find a memory, everyone else would simply find a cold icicle that threatened to give them frostbite.

He himself looked like he had in his early twenties. Black hair that stubbornly refused to lie flat, the slightest hint of stubble as he had been going through the whole bad boy, rebel thing and smart prescription spectacles that actually made him look good and not like a young wastrel who went around banging his head into walls on a regular basis. The lack of cello tape had helped quite a lot at that. He noticed that he was a bit taller than he had been in reality. He stubbornly refused to admit that he was _quite_ a bit taller than he had been, if he wanted to delude himself inside his own head, he had every right to do that, in his opinion.

He looked at the cave he was in and decided to go to the main one that all the passages led to. He quickly found his way there, but he knew that anyone else would get lost all too easily. Once there, he wondered, now where to put the place that would give him full senses? After all, he could hear what was happening outsides through the air ducts, but the eyes were most important. They were what finally brought a person out of the mind if they ever happened to be in as deep as he was. He decided to focus his magic and made a wish.

_"A window."_

It didn't work. Maybe what he was getting was a closed window? One with all that blackout paper on it? So he tried again.

_"An open window!"_

Well, maybe it had curtains in front of it? He knew it wasn't likely. After all, he hadn't even managed to convince himself.

_"A French window?"_

Did it make sense that he was both frustrated and happy that it didn't work? It somehow seemed like something that Malfoy would think of. Draco Malfoy that is, Scorpius would simply imagine a door and walk out of it, fond as the boy was of dramatic exits. He thought about that for a second and then thought, why not and said out loud.

_"A door!" _

It didn't work anymore than the rest had, not that he had really expected it to, after all, he was more likely to imagine a hole to open up and swallow him. He glanced down hopefully; maybe his wish would get fulfilled? As he looked down at his feet, which were firmly fixed to the floor, he decided that it was time to do some out of the box thinking.

_"A porthole!"_

Ok. So that didn't work but that just meant that he had to simply put in some more effort, something he absolutely detested. He was quietly steadfastly of the opinion that work was for others and for situations when there was a Chimera behind him and a sea of magma in front.

_Oh damn it!_ How on earth was he supposed to do this? He was freshly out of ideas. He spied a comfortable armchair in a corner of the cave and made his way to it, sitting down with a sigh. Maybe if he stayed there for a while, he would find out how to do it. He just hoped no one ever found out about this. How embarrassing was this, getting stuck inside his own head.

Lord Voldemort was irritated. Not enough that his skin was developing a scaly texture but enough that his eyes were turning red and he had to work on preventing it. He usually wouldn't bother but Orion had insisted that he accompany him to his house because his mother demanded it. If Lady Black was there, then it was possible that Lord Black was as well. Red eyes were something that occurred only after delving in the darkest of the Dark Arts, those termed the Black Arts. There were quite a few of them but since a lot of them tended to have visible side effects of the more unpleasant variety, most of the possibilities could be quite easily be done away with. The gauntness of his face, the sharpness and the leanness of his body, not to mention the fact that he still looked like he was in his Twenties would narrow the possibilities even more and he wanted to give no hint of his Horcruxes to anyone whose loyalty he wasn't entirely sure of. Since the Blacks had forbidden either of their children to formally join him, it removed them off his admittedly small list quite firmly. Actually, there were only two names on the list, come to think of it, Abraxas Malfoy and Reuben Lestrange.

He hated that he was being summoned like an errant child who was called upon only when he had something that he adults wanted to make use of and then do away with. It reminded him of his humble beginnings quite efficiently and was hence something that made his blood boil and had to be stomped into the ground so hard that it had no chance to rise again.

He threw a Cruciatus at Orion and grew ever more displeased as the man fell to his knees but refused to cry out. He let out an involuntary hiss before clamping his mouth shut quite firmly. It only served to enrage Voldemort even further and he kept the man under the curse for a few minutes eve after he had already started letting out a few disjointed screams. He waited until he was screaming and writhing on the carpet in pain. He knew that his eyes had no doubt turned red and it was only this that made him stop before he cursed the brains out of Black. It would take time for him to return his eyes to the cerulean they usually were; even then, he knew he would only be able to make them turn a light violet shade.

He knew he'd have to though. If he guessed correctly what the matriarch of the Blacks had sent for him for, he had no doubt that the woman would eventually make her way to Gaunt Manor as well, if only so she could attempt to drag him out. Unfortunately for him, if he dared to hurt Lady Black when she only wanted help for her grandson, he knew he would lose a lot of his Pureblood support. They were annoyingly stuck on family, respecting their elders while at the same time nurturing their youngsters and helping them grow. Anyone below the age of seven was sacrosanct and had the right to help by anyone who could. It was one of their most stringently followed codes. He couldn't refuse to help, not if he planned to take over the country. Since he wasn't having many results in the political field, he had been debating over starting to terrorise Wizarding Britain instead, taking it by force if subtlety didn't yield the desired effects. For that, he would need followers who were expendable yet good enough that he didn't lose them on their very first infraction. He needed people in the high echelons of society who could recruit for him and that made it necessary for him to continue this Protector of the Old Ways persona he portrayed himself as instead of simply an ambitious man who wanted power for himself and had chosen this issue to support simply because it was supported by the Purebloods, who held most of the power in society.

Still, logic didn't reduce his anger but it did make it possible for him to wipe his face of all expression and command with only the barest of a hissing undertone, "And why does Lady Black think that she may summon and I will simply come like a well-trained dog?"

Orion was quite clearly in a lot of pain yet he rose from the floor to a bowing position and said in a voice made hoarse with screaming, "Aunt Lycoris was in the Ministry when the detectors for high levels of Underage Magic went off. It seems Cepheus was made a part of some sort of arcane ritual drawing the power of Ostara that went wrong and resulted in such high levels of magic release. Bu the time he was found, the perpetrators were already gone but his magic is misbehaving. It's slipping off and Mother said since you are the Dark Lord, you must be well versed in magic manipulation and the House of Black requests your help in preserving the magic and life of a member of our family."

He managed to say this with admirable composure but then seemed to break down as he pleaded, "Please, my Lord. He's so young. He'll die without his magic."

Voldemort ran a calculating eye over at the pleading man and thought about how he could make use of this situation. He knew quite well that ta such a young age, the child would certainly die if he lost his magic if only because of the trauma. But if he helped and the brat survived, even without his magic, the House of Black would owe him. Orion had made a Formal Plea for Help, and there were many ways he could make use of that. He sent a derogatory look at the mess in front of him and said, "How could I possibly refuse to aid a child? Really Orion," he mock scolded. "If only you had told me, you could have saved yourself such a _strong_ punishment."

He strode from the library where Orion had been ushered by Blipsy and made his way to the Floo in the sitting room, the only place in the whole house where a Floo-connected fireplace was actually visible. He wasn't about to let Orion find out any other fireplaces in his house. He wasn't senile yet. He waited impatiently for Orion to follow him, he hadn't been told where the brat was and though chances were he had been taken to Grimmauld Place, he would feel foolish enough if that weren't the case and he landed up in the wrong place. The man finally limped into the room and told him laboriously, "They are at Grimmauld Place."

He didn't even bother to nod and simply threw the Floo powder into the fireplace before saying, "12, Grimmauld Place!" and being rushed away into the Floo network.

He stepped out gracefully into the parlour of the house and was immediately met with '_Aunt Lycoris'_. He had seen her in the balls he had attended and even been introduced to the notable woman once. She had been the one to pass the Ban on Experimental Breeding of Creatures, notably after her own husband bred a Siren-Veela hybrid that wasn't naturally possible unless there was a human generation in between, and it ended up killing both the man and her one year old son. The woman hadn't let it get to her though, and even though she could have Minister, she had stayed in the Department for the Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures.

He nodded at her before asking affably with carefully controlled eyes, "Where am I needed?" He could and did admire people who were driven and ambitious, and what was it if not that if a female instead of wallowing in her tragic life, made something of herself that even the most influential person was wary of, all in the face of great opposition from an entire society that believed that females were to be looked at but not heard?

The grey-haired petite woman with the classic Black grey eyes nodded back at him as she said, "In the ritual chamber. Lady Black is trying to stabilise her grandson."

Voldemort nodded to show that he had heard before following the woman as she led turned and led the way. He had been there once before, while attending a Samhain ritual but he knew that he would have to be led in by a Black as the chamber would reject anyone else. The woman led him deep into the library and stopped in front of the back wall, most of which was covered by a bookshelf. She pressed her hand to the part of the wall still visible and said, "Je suis un Black et Pur."

A part of the wall seemed to disappear and suddenly there was a doorway with steps leading down into the depths of the chamber revealed. It was lit with magic and as Lycoris Black made her way down, he followed her. He knew the phrase would only work for someone who was both a Black and at the very least a Full Blood or a magical creature. He knew that such features were quite common in the Dark Pureblood households. There was one even in his own house, one that he had been allowed entrance to only by virtue of being the only Slytherin descendent left with the noble tongue.

As he moved down the steps, he slowly let his rigid control on his magic relax; unfurling his magic as he took in the chamber that he had entered only once. It was in the shape of a hexagon, the strongest dark number, just like three was the strongest light number. The walls seemed to writhe in the shadows cast by the soft light, as the carvings moved all around the walls. There were sconces fixed intermittently all around the rooms but they weren't lit, causing the bottom of the steps to be completely in darkness. He stepped down carefully. While he knew logically that he wouldn't get hurt if he happened to topple down the stairs, he had no desire to test it. Not to mention the blow his pride would take, not that it was fragile enough to get bruised from such a little thing.

As they reached the radius of the flickering ball if magic that was the only source of light there, Lycoris Black (he always felt the need to use the complete names of the Black family members, there were so many of them) stepped away and he got his first look at the cause of all this furore. The brat looked disappointingly ordinary. A small body with flushed cheeks but otherwise pale complexion with a tuft of black hair, he looked sick and quite fittingly like a survivor of some terrible ordeal. As he brought forth his mage sight, a trait that was the first step of becoming a Lord, he saw that the brat's magic was leaking in the most alarming manner possible. That is, it would have been alarming if he had cared, since he didn't, it was simply intriguing that it wasn't dead yet. He felt a fleeting sense of regret that a wizard with such strong reserves of power that he hadn't succumbed to death within seconds even with this amount of magic leakage was dying but then thought that the boy might have grown up to be quite a strong power that might have decided to not follow him, following on the footsteps of his parents and grandparents, and the regret disappeared.

"What are you waiting for? Help him!" a frazzled Melania Black cried at him.

He put on a sorrowful expression on his face as he said, "Be that I could, but I am afraid that what he needs is a Healer to ease his passing and not a Dark Lord to cast spells on him."

He paused at that before asking solicitously, "Unless you desire a Lord to say the final rites?"

The woman looked like an enraged penguin as she said with a shake of her still a dark brown coloured hair, "You will prove your _Lordship_ and cage his magic around him so that his body manages to absorb it."

Voldemort arched an eyebrow at her and instead of letting loose the curse he wanted to, he asked in a darkly amused tone of voice, "You _are_ aware that even if I did that, he'd have to be conscious enough to _will_ the magic to be absorbed, even then, it would take months for a proper recovery?"

Lady Black gritted her teeth as she said, "I am confident that he will be perfectly capable of that if he just received even adequate help."

He really was amused this time. Expecting a three-month old to do something that grown men often failed to? She had _really_ high expectations of family members, didn't she? He nodded with a smirk on his face and knelt to crouch on the floor where both witch and child were and as he did so, he noticed what Lycoris Black had meant by Lady Black trying to stabilise her grandson. She had evidently been sucking all the boy's magic to a point directly over his torso, preventing as much of it from escaping as she could. He felt disappointed as he realized that was probably the reason why the boy was still alive and not because he had great reserves of power. She had been a McMillan, hadn't she?

As he brought his own aura to cover the brat's as she started stopping the sucking, and came in contact with the boy's aura, he felt something very strange. It almost felt as if the boy's magic was saying something. He glanced at Lady Black only to see a proud smirk on her face as she looked at him. He turned his eyes back at the boy as after covering the boy's aura with his own, he started using his magic to coalesce the entire magic of the boy between his aura and magic. As he did so, more and more magic continued escaping the small body in Melania Black's lap but it got no further than the sphere he had made with his own magic. Finally, he retracted his aura and removed the buffer between the boy's core and his escaping magic.

Now that he was in complete contact with the boy's magic, he realized the boy really _was_ saying something. He paid attention and was surprised to feel a something other than a bunch of gibberish from his magic.

_A lake!_

Voldemort wondered if the brat was dreaming about drowning, but more than that, he wondered how on earth the brat was thinking anything legible at all, not to mention about something other than food and sleep.

_A gate!_

Now what was he thinking, he wondered in perplexity.

_Oh come on! How on earth am I supposed to get OUT!_

Voldemort wondered whether he was losing his head as he did what he did next.

**_Did you try simply saying that?_**

He felt the boy's magic simply go still for a moment before resuming its escape attempts before he felt it convey something else.

_I want to see and get out into my body._

Voldemort looked at the pale face with the two red splotched cheeks intently and hence had a perfect view as the eyelids twitched a few times and then steadily opened, showing bright emerald eyes. The two pair of eyes, one emerald and one sapphire, looked at each other for one long moment before…

The brat started crying.

It was, Voldemort thought dazedly, the perfect end to a horrible day. And it even made sense, after all, wasn't crying what babies did whether they were happy, sad, angry, hungry, dirty or simply sleepy? It made sense that it was also something what they did when they thought the words

_Oh shit._

**A/N: Would someone like to beta? After a chapter's done, I'm never sure whether I've run away too fast or am going too slow, or even if it's getting boring. Is Voldemort acting too OC? I tried to show that he's the same person he was in the books, except a lot less insane, but I'm not sure i do review!**


	6. Wannabe Dark Lords

Disclaimer: I'm black haired, black eyed and still living with my parents. Do you still think I'm J K Rowling?

_Harry speaking using/to magic_

**_Voldemort speaking using/to magic_**

**A/N: I am so sorry for the late update but my Mid Terms were going on and I had to study and that meant a break from writing fanfiction. I got so many reviews saying that they really liked the ending of the last chapter that I was shocked. I didn't think what I had written was that funny but it's really good to know accidents need not necessarily be bad. **

**A reviewer asked last chapter to explain the ritual and the soul thing. The ritual will be explained as Cepheus finds it out himself but for the soul, think of it like this.**

**A main Computer with lots of memory and its own programs is attached to a mobile phone with a lead. the computer can pass information to the mobile and the mobile can pass it to the computer. however, the mobile can function on its own as well. It also has a memory limit, depending on the size of the memory card. Imagine the state between the main soul and the piece of it inhabiting a body to b similar. the main soul is the computer while Cepheus is the mobile, except of course, there are a few differences, but this is the best I could come up with.**

**Now, thank you so, so , so much for so many lovely reviews. Thanks to dogsby, Riku Yamamoto, Miss Nailia, geetac, lostfeather1 , noelnoel2 (for both chapter 4 and 5, I've got the moderate guest review option on and that meant it got a bit delayed.) , rosier , BitterSongOfGrace, floraly, Stormshadow13, Haruhei , Lovise Polaris , Azakial, lilyoftheval5, Celena Black.**

Chapter 5

March 21 1964

Harry had felt understandably shocked when he had received an answer to his frustrated query. That hadn't stopped him from trying the suggestion and he had promptly (or as promptly someone struck dumb could) wished from his magic

_I want to see and get out into my body._

He had felt like kicking himself when it worked and he could suddenly feel his eyes. They had felt very heavy and dry. He would have rubbed them in an effort to make them sprout some moisture but right then, he simply wanted to open them and make sure that he even could. It took a few moments but eventually, he had opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was a pair of brilliant sapphire eyes, that slowly, in front of him, turned slightly violet, the same colour that Lily's eyes went whenever she wanted to look more interesting. His daughter had always used red tinted lenses over her naturally blue lenses to achieve that effect, but that wasn't what was running through his mind at that moment. No, what had completely occupied his mind was the face those eyes belonged to. The face that he had once seen in a memory, the face which had figured prominently in his nightmares for many years before Ginny had convinced him to see a Mind Healer, the face that he didn't think he would ever forget. It was the face of Lord Voldemort. At that realisation, it was as if the dam broke. He snapped into his body completely at that sign of danger and as a result, he started wailing.

_What the hell? _He asked himself at _that._ Usually, when he felt in danger, his blood started flowing faster, his brain grew razor sharp and he could literally feel the magic all around him. He emphatically did not start blubbering. But it had the somewhat desired result anyway as he was promptly gathered up into the arms of the person he had been lying on the lap of. It hadn't been Voldemort who had been holding him, but a woman he realized. His body deemed to know her, as his wails of panic gave way to little whimpers of pain as she rocked him gently, holding him close to her chest, peppering kisses all over his head.

"He's in pain." A female voice said, he couldn't determine whether she was old or young. His perception of sound seemed to be quite faulty.

The woman who was rocking him said in irritation, "I know." And he now knew that both were of similar ages, if he wasn't wrong.

The first woman replied, "Just thought I'd tell you since you weren't doing anything about it."

The rocking stopped and he felt like starting crying anew at the loss of the wonderful sensation as the woman holding him said waspishly, "Why don't you go _Ennervate _Walburga. Tell her there is no need for anymore hysterics because her darling's perfectly all right now."

"Is he?" the other woman asked. "Because Riddle here seemed to be of the opinion that the boy would die the moment he left. And you don't mean to say Walburga's to raise the little baby with an attendant nymph in the form of a wannabe Dark Lord."

He braced himself, which proved to be very painful, for whatever Voldemort was about to do for this grave insult but nothing happened. In fact, the woman said in a tone of a mother scolding her errant progeny for putting his hand in the cookie jar,

"Oh don't puff up like a chicken. Poultry is for eating not emulating. Just because you have passed the first test does not mean you have or even _can_ pass the others and till you do, you are just a wannabe Dark Lord, just like the multitude of gormless fools populating the known world."

That must have burnt, he thought in awe_._ He was the Defeater of Voldemort, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the Man Who Conquered, and he would never dare scold the man for anything. Insult him for doing what he had yes, but never call him a wannabe Dark Lord who went around emulating Poultry!

The man failed to give almost as well as he got as he said in a sickly sweet voice, "Since my assistance doesn't seem to be required anymore, I really ought to take my leave."

He had a silky yet husky voice, the type that Teddy had always tried to make himself sound like because evidently, it was the type of voice Victoire called _boudoir voice_. Of course, Teddy had always failed.

The woman holding him barked in a tone that seemed to brook no opposition, "Oh no you won't. You will stay here as long as needed, his entire life if you must."

That was when Harry realised that instead of trying a witty comeback, he decided on a threat. He sincerely hoped what the woman had said wouldn't be required, he might just pop off because of a heart attack.

Voldemort replied with what must have been sarcasm but still ended up sounding completely sincere, "One would assume that my life would be quite shorter than his."

The first woman, the one who had treated Voldemort with such cavalier disregard, pointed out in a matter of fact tone, "Not really, if what you said isn't a lot of dragon manure. After all, if he'll drop off the moment you move away, the lack of you in his life will no doubt hasten his departure from this realm to within moments of yours."

That was a patent lie! Harry thought indignantly. She made it sound as if he was besotted with the man and would die of heart break! And anyway, why was the prevalent opinion that he'd die if Voldemort went away? Even Dumbledore hadn't been that far gone, and the man's entire game plan had been hoping Harry would die before Voldemort did because as long as Voldemort was alive, so was Harry.

He felt like laughing. Or maybe crying, as the tears trickling down his cheeks seemed to indicate. He felt extremely battered, so much in fact that he wouldn't have been surprised if he was told that he had been trampled on by a herd of elephants, and then used as a cushion bag for a bunch of Hungarian Horntails, or maybe as a trampoline for a couple of Ironbellies. Honestly, what was it with life making him its punching bag? Here he was, in a new body, a new life, and yet he couldn't get away from Voldemort. Was it going to be the same his every life? As long as Voldemort was alive, he'd have to deal with the man?

Harry decided to do something he was very opposed to; he let out a ringing cry. And ring it did, because evidently, cries of distress were amplified in the chamber, as the woman who had no compunctions taking the mickey out of Voldemort said when the woman holding him fussed over him, "Don't be such a wuss, Melania. The chamber makes any sounds of distress louder so that everything can be heard everywhere."

Did that mean people were regularly tortured here with such big crowds in attendance that a Sound Amplifying Charm was always in effect, he thought in horror. Where _was_ he that this was the case? He had lived at Grimmauld Place and Black Manor before moving into Potter Manor with Ginny after their marriage, but he really didn't remember any sort of room that had such a spell cast on it. In fact, there were, muffling spells on most of the rooms. He sincerely hoped that they didn't plan to sacrifice _him_ on the altar of Pureblood Propaganda.

The woman who was holding him, who had been called Melania said in an irritated voice, "Do not be so foolish Lycoris. I know that just as well as you do, probably better in fact since I spent an extra decade here."

Voldemort interrupted before anything else could be said, "As pleasant as these ruminations are, I believe it would be more comfortable to get off the floor."

Melania said in a haughty tone that seemed to say that it was perfectly all right to sit on the floor, and why, if she was doing it, it would naturally enough be made into a new fashion, "You really should have said something if you were in any discomfort. You are a guest in our house and we will, of course, take every care that you aren't unnecessarily discomfited."

Harry, who had had to learn how to deal with the political circuit after his defeat of the blood and flesh man next to him, read the undertones quite easily. She was saying, quite politely of course, that she would take care of him, as long as it didn't prove to be a bother to her. The moment it did, he'd be out on his ear, and if she was too polite to do that, stuffed in the water closet. He really pondered what on earth was wrong with these people that they weren't afraid Voldemort was going to Crucio them, something that he did to even all of his followers who behaved in the most deferential manner possible around him. Of course, since they were too busy exchanging witty quips to bother with the tiny, little, helpless baby in their midst who was whining in the most pitiful manner possible, quite audibly in pain, it was entirely possible that they simply had a few brain cells less than recommended.

Nonetheless, they took Voldemort's advice, something he was loath to admit he actually endorsed, since this meant that at last, someone would give him a potion to relieve his pain. He was jostled as Melania got up but refrained from protesting further, he had to make them understand what he wanted by complaining loudly when he was displeased and not doing so when they did something he wanted them to, even if it _did_ hurt his extremely fragile bones. He was quite thankful for the arm beneath his head; otherwise he was sure that his head would have lolled back in the unhealthiest manner possible. He could feel her walking and then climbing up what seemed to be stairs. It wasn't the most comfortable ride possible in his battered body, but he consoled himself by saying he'd be pain free soon enough, and confined himself to slight sniffs. He had suffered a lot, he told himself, too much to simply start bawling at the smallest ouch.

He blinked and his eyes watered as a doorway of light seemed to open right in front of him. After his eyes had adjusted and he had stopped blinking his tears, he realized that the room they were in was filled with shelves; it was difficult to see anything except the closest things due to the angle Melania was holding him at. He heard only one set of dainty footsteps follow them and wondered if Voldemort was going to stay behind. He certainly hoped so. Still, he didn't want to get his hopes up too soon and so reached out with his magic and then promptly recoiled at what he found. It seemed that while he had been focused on what he was finding out from his five senses, he should have been focusing on his sixth one, magic. He could feel Voldemort's aura all around him, caging him in. It was claustrophobic, and not just because the last things he could feel the man's taint on so strong had been Dumbledore's grave, the Great Hall of Hogwarts and the elder wand the day he used it to take a life that wasn't already half gone. He didn't like it at all and struggled against the strong hold the man had on him but all that accomplished was Voldemort tightening his cage even further. He subsided at that, he knew that he was in no condition to take on such an opponent and win.

Melania hadn't stopped walking all this while and as she passed one of the shelves, he saw books. Twisting his head as much as he could, he was surprised to realise that they were in the library. The only time he had been here was when Hermione had wanted to see the priceless books that the Blacks had no doubt hoarded but then, the room had been much smaller and the collection of books almost negligible. The Order had cleared away almost all the books and the ones left were mostly the ones that Kreacher had hidden. Hermione had been incensed since the books had been burnt, the only way to clear them of their Dark taint, as Mrs Weasley had told them. Harry had felt slightly irritated but since he had never been too interested in reading for the sake of reading, he hadn't been too bothered, especially since they had been Sirius' books and if the man had wanted them to be burnt, who was he to oppose it? Looking at the room that they travelled through before reaching the door that led into the hallway, he realised that a part of the room had also been converted into something else. The thing was, he had never seen any other room on that the second floor except the Lord's study, the book room(which still seemed quite ridiculous to him since the library was on the very same floor), and the mauve parlour. Still, they moved forward and then climbed two more set of stairs, which proved torturous to him, before finally coming to a stop in front of a door that on craning his neck, he recognized as the master bedroom.

A woman with her grey hair in an up do on her head opened the door and they entered. Lycoris, because that must be who she was, uttered the word, "Ennervate," at a prone figure lying on the bed right in the middle of the room. The deep green covers were drawn over her and were flung off as the woman came to a sitting position with frightening alacrity. She instantly shouted, "My baby!"

Melania told her gently, "I told you I'd take care of him," and proceeded to hand him over to the woman who clambered along the bed to its edge and held out her arms with a pleading expression on her face. Harry had the (who knew how many) th shock of the day when he saw the face of the woman who took him so gently and then promptly squeezed nearly all the air out of him by hugging him so hard his ribs creaked. There was no doubt about it, she might have looked younger than her portrait but she was still unmistakable, she was Walburga Black.

The woman finally stopped her murderous displays of affection and simply started rocking him while asking in a worried tone of voice, "He's in so much pain. Shouldn't we give him something?"

Lycoris said in a manner that quite resembled Hermione when she was in one of her '_I know everything while you know nothing, so keep your mouth shut and listen to me while I educate you brain dead morons'_, "Potions shouldn't be used on children below the age of three, they can damage to the core, cause partial blindness and even turn the child into an invalid."

That was a lie, he thought furiously. He remembered feeding Lily potions when she was just two and caught a fever and nothing had happened.

"Don't worry," Melania said reassuringly. "Lepidus has been working on that, in a few years, we might just be able to feed potions to children."

Okay, Harry told himself with a wince as he realized that evidently hey were simply going to bandage him up without any pain relieving potions to take care of the pain, so maybe they weren't lying and whatever it was that made potions safe for children had simply not been discovered. He'd be very grateful to this Lepidus if he managed to figure it out, that or be very angry for being so late at doing it.

Melania further spoke, "There is nothing physically wrong with him, he's suffering magically from whatever it is that those kidnappers did to him."

"My poor baby," Walburga murmured and started rocking him as Lycoris told Voldemort who seemed to have silently followed them up the stairs, "She doesn't mean to ignore you, she's just too busy with her son."

Voldemort said in a firmly controlled voice, "Walburga has a long history of paying attention to what she wants more than what is appropriate."

As Melania, who he still hadn't looked at, joined the conversation between Lycoris and Voldemort, he started wondering how he could have such an idiot. What had he been thinking, at not storing anything about his new life when he decided to store all his memories of being Harry in this body? He had been a fool. Here he had been, with the maturity of an adult and he had forgotten to bring any of his memories that didn't belong to his life as Harry from his astral mindscape into his biological mindscape. He had simply thought that since he had been allowed to keep his past memories, he could pop off and view whatever he wanted to, whenever he wanted to, but he hadn't taken into account the problems with that. Since the biological body was meant to hold only one personality, and sets of memories, he had refrained from storing anything except his life as Harry and a few magical gifts, like languages and Mind Magics, into his body. He instinctively knew that he'd go mad if he did otherwise, after all, that was why most true seers went mad, knowing and feeling things that so many people did, but as a result, he didn't even know his name.

Really, when was he going to know which name he had in this life, how was he supposed to start integrating his life as Harry into his life as whoever he was then if one, he didn't know his name. Two, his entire life had spanned a measly few months. And three, he couldn't even walk.

Wait, he thought with a tingle of excitement. Hadn't he lived up to his teenage years the time he had been strangled in his sleep? That meant he could find, if not a lot, then at least a little, which was better than the absolute nothing he had now. He went deep into himself and reached the cave again, but this time he didn't move from the main chamber, instead focusing on finding the almost rope like piece of pathway that tethered his soul to his body. Once there, he was instantly bombarded with all the memories of all the lives he had ever lived. He winced, it seemed having a fixed personality wasn't good when in one's astral mindscape as the current self fought against the influx of so many other memories that had been formed by so many other personalities. He focused on pulling the memories of who he was at that moment, the memories that had the tinge of the unique flavour of magic that belonged to his current body and found many of them. He sighed, at least most of the memories would be really small and he would be able to store them in his physical mindscape easily enough. He proceeded to do just that.

Once back in the cave, he touched the pale, silvery outgrowths from the floor of the cave the memories had been stored in and explored all of them. At the end of it, he stared at the crystals in stupefaction. Where were the memories of the only life he'd spent as this Black boy where he'd managed to reach at least puberty before dying?

The being, who was a part of just one of the races that lived in the Astral Plains, looked on at the Real World. He could see the part of himself that he was focusing on looking frustrated a frown on the child's face. He hated denying himself anything, and even that part of him was in the Real World and an almost separate entity itself at the moment, it didn't change the fact that _he_ knew it was just a part of himself and wanted to do everything he could to help it get everything it wanted. And now, one of the only things he could provide anymore, and he was withholding his help, it made him feel strange.

But that wasn't such a strange thing at all, after so many years of entering the Real World had left him with remnants of emotions that he simply wasn't capable of feeling really. Only the very young and the very old felt like that anymore. It was said that once upon a time, when the denizens of the Astral Plains hadn't yet found out that living in the Real World for short periods of time made them immortal, everyone had been capable of feeling emotions other than what they did now. Demons could feel more than the darker emotions and angels could feel more than the lighter emotions… and souls could feel something at all. But all of that was history, or maybe just a myth that was of no use to him.

What was of use, was making sure to send just the right bits of himself through the astral Tether, that which kept him connected to the flesh and blood body a part of him inhabited. The right bits of him would contain the right bits of personality, honour, sense, courage, intuition and so much else. He'd already done that, and now he could only hope that he had made the right Decision. He knew just as well as the other Elders did, he was one himself after all, what had to be done, even if felt strange emotions whenever he thought clearly about what he was doing.

He felt another soul approach him from behind but he made no sign to show that he had registered the presence. It was only when she touched and tried to mingle with his floating, spread out mass that consisted solely of energy that he showed any reaction, and that was only to solidify so that he looked like one of the male specimens that populated the world these days, dinosaurs. She sent a wave of discontentment at him before following suit. He refrained from looking at her, he knew she would look like one of those Veelas that she so admired, one of her daughters had been the first one to be born and ever since, she had been taken with the form. After a while filled with nothing but the muted murmurs coming from the spot where the Veil between the Astral Plains and the real World had thinned to the point of being see-through, she sighed and said in a cajoling voice, "You made a wonderful choice of personality. He did everything we wanted him to, and he didn't even suspect that I set him up."

He asked her at that, "And what if that very obtuseness leads to the downfall of our plans?"

She said bracingly, "Then we'll try again and again till we get it right."

He said with what a human would probably have called wistfulness but what he thought of as a simple dream, "It would have worked if we had just been able to send the information of what the stakes were."

She told him matter-of-factly, "You know perfectly well that astral tethers can be hijacked, and it's only us who depend on the Real World now. Everyone else had managed to live without perfectly well. We send such classified news and it gets taken by someone else and we wouldn't lose just a few of our brethren. We would lose the entire species. At least this way, if nothing else works, we'd still have a place to call home."

He finally turned to her and looked at the silver blonde hair and blue eyes with a pixyish face and said, "Of course. I'm the one who brought it our notice."

They might not feel much, but they felt enough that she smiled at her oldest friend and tucking her hand in his, she tugged him away from one of the places that souls went to whenever they wanted to see what was happening down in Reality, or was it sideways, she could never figure it out. She told him calmly, "Come, let's go see your ward and think up another way to make him not split his soul, _again_."

"It is not funny. He is in terrible pain." He reprimanded her, but made no effort to move away from her and walked alongside her.

"Completely terrible," she agreed before asking curiously, "But what I don't understand is this. How _does_ he always end up making seven bodies once he is reality, no matter what part of himself he puts in there?"

He simply sighed, a sure sign that he had failed to comprehend the vagaries of the life of lord Voldemort and simply didn't want to say it.

Of course, she continued, "What I also can't understand is why would any part of you think that you could trick m in any way?"

Be it the real World or the Astral Plains, one thing always remained same and he promptly said, "Because you are a wonderful actor who can convince a man eating shark that he is a puppy that worships humans."

She looked suitably pleased at that and he patted himself on the back for another crisis averted, mentally of course. He'd never be able to pat his back in a body that actually had a back.

**A/N: I can put more of a role of the two souls, maybe give them a name if anyone wants it, otherwise it's just going to be very little things like nudges that Cepheus is going to get without knowing why or how that is going to show their presence. so, does anyone want the occassional scenes involving the souls or should this be the only one, with maybe one more far into the future?**


	7. Mothers and Demons

**A/N: Was the last chapter that bad? I'll have to go over it and make some changes then, I guess. Azakial's agreed to beta and the betaed Prologue is up. As I go over the chapters again, there will probably be a few added or deleted scenes, but it isn't happened yet and if it does, I'll put the notification in the latest chapter. **

**Thanks to Celena Black, Miss Nailia, Stormshadow13, alien, yuiop for reviewing.**

**As for the journal thing, I've always wanted to write a diary entry type of fic but I've realized I'm simply not cut out for a whole story in that format. Still, I do want to try my hand at it so here it is. these entries are going to be Harry's thoughts mostly, with references to what happened in Harry's world in my fic. Later on, they'll probably be replaced by visions as he starts having them but that will depend on how hard it is to think up new visions for each chapter. **

**And yeah, I don't own Harry Potter. If I did, I wouldn't be using my sister's desktop to write.  
**

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Chapter 6

_Just when I started thinking it was going to be all right, she went and wrung my neck. After, of course, trying to throw me on the floor. Is it just me, or am I starting to have too many close encounters with floors?_

_-An Excerpt from the journal of Cepheus Pollux Black_

March 21 1964

Harry came back to his senses to find out that Walburga Black had joined the discussion going on, except now the topic had changed from Walburga's societal graces, or the lack thereof, to what had happened to him and how anyone could have gotten in. He started paying attention when he heard an unfamiliar word that was being repeated many times.

Walburga was saying, "But how did the _Aequalitas _even get in?"

Didn't aqua mean water? He wondered at how much fear and loathing was behind that word, but then again, he had never managed to learn Latin and so couldn't be sure. And that was one more thing he had forgotten to store in his mind, but then again, he told himself sternly, it wasn't that important that he didn't remember all the languages that his soul no doubt knew, not compared to the fact that he seemed to be missing a life or so, he couldn't be sure. He would have thought he had the wrong idea except he was certain he had been strangled once and that didn't happen in any of the lives he did remember. Or maybe it was being suffocated with a pillow; he remembered that happening, though he hadn't been able to see who had done it.

He mentally shook his head and paid attention to the discussion taking place as Lycoris said, "The Potters had visited that day, maybe it was then that they managed to get in."

He took in a sharp breath at that name, which caused Walburga to start rocking his again, something that she had stopped, as she said with thinly veiled disapproval, "Aunt Dorea wouldn't do that. She might have married a Potter but she was still born a Black and even the Blood Traitor hasn't forgotten all the traditions yet."

Melania said with such carefully concealed disgust that it was obvious to anyone listening to her that her feelings were anything but disinterest, "But the Blood Traitor was kicked out of the family tree while Dorea is still on it. That naturally enough gives her more chances to make mischief than an estranged, ostracized Blood-Traitor would."

Harry wanted to shout out his disgust at them for maligning his grandmother, but when he tried, his tongue seemed unusually wobbly and unwieldy, the motions that he had made with it for so many years without second thoughts suddenly as unfamiliar as an Aztec rune, if they even had runes. It took a few moments for him to remember that he was a baby and couldn't speak yet, just make strange little warbles that made no sense at all. He frowned at that, not that anyone took any notice.

Walburga asked curiously, the sudden disappearance of the disapproval from her voice making him think that the emotion had been for her aunt, and not Melania for accusing the woman, "So you think the only reason Blood Traitors remain sticklers for rules and somehow manage to remain unfashionably long lived with an entire chicken coop for family is because they don't have anything else to do, much less get any chances to ruin the lives of proper Purebloods who actually have a care for what society expects?"

Lycoris said in a stern voice, "That is neither here nor there, unless you mean to show that your attention span is equal to that of your father's heir?"

Harry didn't understand why Walburga went stiff at that and said with icy politeness, "Of course not, Aunt Lycoris. I just thought it better to change the subject before you started thinking we had forgotten about your losses and how it must pain you to hear how easy it is to get away with harming the sons of old Pureblood families."

The silence at that was so all encompassing that he rather thought that he would be able to hear a pin drop on the carpet. Loath though he was to admit it, he didn't understand why that had been such a conversation stopper, maybe Lycoris had lost a child too? It didn't look like he would be privileged to know the answer any time soon though as just then there was a knock on the door and when Melania said enter, it opened and he saw three pairs of men's well shod feet enter the room, one of them a bit unsteady. He wondered what had happened but then put it out of his mind. It wasn't that interesting and if he was meant to find out he would. It wasn't as if he could ask. He hoped that someone else would ask but everyone else seemed to take e it for granted that one of the men who entered the room seemed to be swaying slightly, either they didn't care or already knew the answer. As the man moved into his line of sight, he was disappointed to note that he couldn't see his face as Walburga's arms hid it. As he watched, the man's hand underwent a spasm right in front of him.

He shifted a bit but it Walburga deliberately moved her arms so that he couldn't see anything as she whispered; "Mama knows little Cepheus is excited to see his father but he really must try to rest. He must be in terrible pain."

Well, he hadn't been till she reminded him of it, he thought, feeling surly as he became aware of a burning sensation in his body. He hoped it wasn't a fever or a signal that he had broken bones. He clenched and unclenched his hands a few times; everything seemed to be all right, if a bit strange and disconnected, but nothing that couldn't be explained away by his suddenly being in the body of a little baby. He moved his legs a little and tried to rotate his head too except a hand gently took hold of his head and with a small, completely fake laugh, Walburga said, "I'm sure there's nothing that a little bit of time wouldn't cure."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," a pompous voice proclaimed.

He was really starting to hate the fact that he had so little control over his limbs that he couldn't even sit up straight in order to look around at the people in the room. He had a feeling it was going to cause problems. And, he thought sarcastically as the man continued speaking, he was proved right. Sometimes, he wondered why he had the perfect intuition at the worst time ever.

"My Lord. My Ladies," There seemed to be a little bowing going on as there was the swish of robes over the carpet. "We looked over the ritual and the preliminary reports suggest things that will ensure nothing will be all right again."

"Stop pontificating Rosier, and simply tell us what you've found," a tired, extremely familiar voice said. He knew he ought to recognize the voice but he couldn't. He simply hoped he'd be able to soon.

The first voice, the one that probably belonged to this Rosier, sounded a bit offended and on his dignity as he said, "If you knew what I was going to say, you certainly wouldn't say that. What we have found is simply disgusting and too terrible o behold." By the end of it, there really was a sort of disgusted and horrified feel to his voice that made Harry wonder what exactly had gone on in the ritual that was supposed to simply take away his magic. Unless of course, that very fact was what had brought this tone into his voice. No doubt it would lead to a lot of paranoia about who had lost their magic to whom.

He blinked at that thought. Hadn't there been a Muggleborn Registration Committee or something like that during that single year of Voldemort's rule? Surely that didn't mean that one failed magic stealing ritual had led to that whole propaganda about Muggleborns stealing magic from Purebloods? But the ritual hadn't really failed in that life had it, as far as he remembered, Walburga had had only two children and both Sirius and Regulus had had magic. He also remembered dying just days after the ritual, suffering till his last breath. That only left one conclusion, the Purebloods had used his death to gather the last thing that they needed in their arsenal to wage a successful war, self-righteousness.

He didn't have much time to think about this as Rosier said with some sort of deep emotion that he wasn't able to correctly decipher, a mix between pain, horror and disgust maybe, "There were clear signs of the worst sort of magic, of _soul_ magic."

There was a pause and then another man said, the owner of the third pair of shoes no doubt, "Don't mind me, but isn't that what they practice in France, some sort of joyous relief from life's tension?"

There was a pause before Voldemort said in a noncommittal tone, "It's the unfashionably moral version of saying Necromancy."

"Oh," the man said in surprise. There was another pause as Rosier waited for everyone to ask the all-important question. Finally, the same man asked again, "So, they were trying to turn live bodies into inferi? I thought that secret was lost with Grindelwald."

Rosier said with gritted teeth, "Since Grindelwald doesn't happen to be particularly well lost as you can find out his location from a book; it stands to reason that the secret isn't as lost as it could be. But no, that wasn't what I meant."

"Then you ought to explain what you do mean," the first man said rudely. His voice was hoarse, as if he had been shouting for a while, or maybe stifling his cries. The tremor in his voice indicated the second option more than the first, though with his luck, it was entirely possible that it was neither of those and the man had simply gotten up from sleep or was an alcoholic suffering from a hangover. His ability to decipher age, emotions and underlying causes hadn't gotten any better in the minutes that had passed from his gaining consciousness. H might even be the man with the shaking hand and unsteady gait, in which case, chances were he s Orion Black, because if Walburga was his mother, Orion was bound to be his father, unless things were really different in this life. Of course, he reflected bitterly, things were already different; after all, Voldemort wasn't acting like the wand crazy homicidal maniac who didn't relax until he had tortured at least one person every hour.

Rosier said, "There were signs of rune magic. Even though the caster's magic couldn't be identified due to their use, the pathways traveled by the magic led to some disturbing discoveries."

Harry noted incredulously that the man was alliterating even while letting out some sort of dastardly news. He refrained from thinking of the use of soul magics in France; it wasn't as if it would be particularly useful to him since it seemed to be some sort of Muggle way of therapy or something.

"It seems,' and there was some real anger in his voice that Harry was afraid was directed at him, "that they were using summoning rituals, and I hope you _do_ know what that means?"

Walburga suggested, "They, and do you even know how many people were on it, were trying to summon a spirit to do something and decided to use him as a sacrifice!" by the end of it, it had changed from a question to an exclamation and her voice had risen a few octaves and started to sound like the shrill banshee wail he had been used to hearing from her portrait.

There was a pause before Voldemort suggested in a darkly amused tone, "Why don't you stop expecting questions and start providing answers?"

Rosier said deferentially, "Yes, of course, my Lord."

Walburga was so distracted by what was happening that he managed to push her arms away from his face so that he could see what was going on. It wasn't enough to see the faces of the three men, nor of Melania who was in the shadows cast by the fireplace, but it was enough for him to see a man rise up from a bow towards a seated Voldemort and face Walburga.

"You know the Unspeakables have been working on ancient blood, soul and healing rituals for years…" the man, who was fair in coloring, said but he didn't get to speak much as the man who had spoken of the French Fake Soul Magic Practitioners interrupted him and said pointedly, "No, actually we don't. It goes with the whole scenario of their working in the Department of Mysteries and being called Unspeakables. They don't actually tell us what they do."

"Oh, don't they?" Rosier sounded like he would have gloated if the subject had been anything else as he said, "It must be the result of your _occupation_. Everyone else who is anyone knows it quite well. But since you don't know, The Department has been searching healing techniques and how to improve them, and naturally enough, they also paid attention to blood magic, and from there it was a short step towards soul magic."

Harry hadn't known that. Wasn't blood and soul magic illegal? It was in his time, but on closer reflection he remembered that Hermione had said that Voldemort had probably found out how to make Horcruxes from the Hogwarts Library as he hadn't asked for any steps when he had asked Slughorn those questions; he had just been ignorant of the ramifications of splitting his soul seven times. And if such things could be found in a school, then it probably couldn't be too illegal.

"_What_ are you going on about?" Lycoris asked pointedly.

"A necromantic summoning ritual was used on the child's body and it was even completed, along with several runes for portal creation and mid-level demon containment. And that means that the body in your arms is probably not a boy but a demon."

And before Harry knew what was happening, he'd been flung off Walburga's lap and encased in a blue spherical containment shield used by curse breakers for artifacts containing the ancient, unknown curses that might have been benevolent blessings or even those that ripped your body into pieces.

It hurt his head as his neck was still fragile but the spherical walls of the shield provided enough support that he didn't die due to a broken neck. That would have been a truly ignominious death that he had no intention of suffering through, though how he could escape the lethal intentions of the blonde man with green eyes that was scowling ferociously at him was something that he had no ideas about.

He tried to shout, "I'm not a demon!" but it came out as a jumble of incomprehensible babble. He tried beating his hands at the shield, hoping his accidental magic would make a chink in it but he had forgotten about Voldemort's magic surrounding his, and it stopped him from doing anything but struggle fruitlessly. His mind raced as he tied to think up of something, anything that would stop the man from casting whatever curse it was that was making the tip of Rosier's wand light up a bright green.

He had a sneaking suspicion that it was a Killing Curse and he had never been less gratified at being proved right as Melania said, "I hope, Mr Rosier, that you aren't attempting to throw the Killing Curse at my grandson, without even offering any proof of this possession. You might have temporarily forgotten it, but killing a member of a Noble and Most Ancient House is quite illegal, accident is a life sentence and a deliberate murder happens to be worth a Kiss."

Rosier opened his mouth, looking quite incensed that he was being deterred from going through with the spell but Melania didn't give him the chance to say anything as she continued inescapably, "And a plea of demon possession would not work since it was proved quite conclusively that the person has to agree before being possessed by a demon, unless it is a dead body, and I assure you that Cepheus is still quite alive."

She stopped to take a breath, or maybe simply give Rosier a chance to say something so that she could interrupt him jut again as she proceeded to do when he said, "I,".

She came out into the light while saying, "Now, now, dear Romulus. Surely you aren't forgetting that I am your godmother and know exactly how you think. If you really weren't aware of Cepheus being alive, why would you start to shoot the Killing Curse at him? And please do not take me for a fool by denying that was what you were about to do, the only other spell that shoes a green glow at the tip of the wand before being released is the Scrubbing Charm. You don't mean to tell me you were about to shoot a Household charm at a demon possessed baby, do you?"

Romulus Rosier looked furious as he bit out, "You are quite mistaken with my intentions, Madam. That is a demon in your grandson's body. The soul that he was born with is simply not there and only the presence of a soul necessitates an agreement between the host and the demon for a possession to occur."

"Oh?" Melania asked with a chill in her voice, showing no hint of agreement but Harry was afraid that she might agree with the man. After all, if Voldemort had been able to listen to what he was saying while inside his own mind, who knew whether she had been able to too while he was in her lap. And he knew, no one would ever expect a baby to string together words to form coherent phrases, which made the chance of his being a demon quite plausible.

Walburga asked in a shaky voice, "You mean to say that my son's dead?"

Rosier sounded genuinely sad as he said, "That's why I was acting so carefree. It was in an effort to surprise the demon who no doubt understands everything we are saying."

He was afraid that he might have made the mater worse by trying to shake his head as there was a stifled gasp before Orion shouted, "Walburga!"

Just as he was beginning to think that thing couldn't get any worse, the shield surrounding him vanished and he dropped down on the floor, eyes screwed shut. He was fully expecting to be smashed into pieces as he hit the floor, but the magic that had surrounded him ever since he woke him finally proved useful as it cushioned his fall, the carpet helping to make the landing gentle. He still felt battered, but at least his skull hadn't been smashed in, he only hoped that his head even had a full cranium. He was very aware of the fact that babies of a very young age did not have a bone covering on the top of their heads.

Of course, the point proved to be moot when a pair of delicate hands circled his throat and started to squeezed.

* * *

**A/N: Please do review! And I finally figured out how to put in page breaks that are recognizable in the doc manager. Now, does anyone know how to remove these lines?  
**


	8. I lie I Lie Not

Disclaimer: I'm black haired, black eyed and still living with my parents. Do you still think I'm J K Rowling?

_Harry speaking using magic_

**_Voldemort speaking using magic_**

**A/N: Thank you lostfeather1, history, lilyoftheval5, Cherrie-san , love00dark, Lemrinth, dogsby and my guest reviewers. To the guest reviewers who didn't leave a name, maybe you could write a penname in your review like some other guest reviewers do so that i can write it in the thanks section instead of simply making it a big thanks for them all, together or writing Guest 1, 2 and so on? **

Chapter 7

_Lily always said that some people are born idiots. James said that people just grow up idiotic sometimes. Al, being the kind person he is, said that people are made idiots by circumstances. If I had to, I'd choose Al's definition for me but I have a sneaking suspicion that I might just be closer to the other two definitions. _

_-An Excerpt from the journal of Cepheus Pollux Black_

He had never been as grateful to Voldemort as when he said, "I am afraid Walburga that I simply cannot allow you to go forth with this."

Walburga turned to look at him, her hands loosening enough that Harry could take in small gulps of air which he did as rapidly as he could.

She almost screeched at Voldemort, "How can you even say that! Didn't you listen to Romulus? He's a demon! We must completely eradicate him!"

Voldemort shook his head indulgently, sitting back comfortably in the armchair as he said, "I have no problems with your attempts on him."

"So?" she asked, beleaguered

"It's simply that you're using magic to do it too and he's completely covered by my magic." He explained. "I would prefer not to be attacked as well."

"Well then, take it off! It's not as if I asked you to!" she said, looking extremely frazzled, yet her hands didn't let go of Harry's throat even slightly, which was making him feel dizzy and as if his eyeballs were going to pop out of his head.

Voldemort spoke so calmly that Harry felt the urge to throw something at him, how dare the man act as if everything was happy and nice when here he was, being killed by the woman who had given birth to him? However, he tried to temper the urge when he remembered that the man could hear his thoughts, chances were, he could also know his feelings, possible but not probable but there wasn't any reason to take unnecessary risks. Still, he couldn't help flailing around; trying to get the hands off him even though he knew it just wasted his energy, energy he desperately needed to survive as the hands had started tightening again.

Voldemort interrupted just before Harry nearly slipped into unconscious, saying mockingly, "I would really love to Walburga dearest, but I would hate to deprive of the joy of knowing you've brutally snapped the neck of your son."

As she shot a betrayed look at him, he said in mock shock, "Oh. Was I wrong, did you mean to suffocate him instead? It certainly would be more painful, all that blood rushing to his head, the blood vessels of his eyes popping, filling his vision with blood…"

Voldemort smiled affably at her and Walburga's hands slowly started slipping off until they were completely off him and she was scrambling to her feet, rushing away from the prone body lying on the floor. She looked around wildly, skin stretched taut across her cheekbones before she screamed, "Don't you understand? DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS? I studied demonology with Romulus! I know what they do! That's not Cepheus there, Cepheus' dead! My baby's dead and now he'll be wiped off the family trees, his name forever lost, his very existence a forgotten secret!"

As everyone except Voldemort and Rosier looked at her, appalled looks ion their face, she shouted at them hysterically, "It's an ABOMINATION! He may be my flesh but that's all it is. My Cepheus is DEAD and I'll be damned to the In Between before I let that _thing_ flourish in my _son's_ body. SO DON'T TELL ME TO STOP!"

By the end of it, Harry could see dimly through his watering eyes that Walburga looked like she was crying, her cheeks splotched and wet. She looked mad, so like the portrait of her in Grimmauld Place that it was scary. But he wasn't too worried about it, all he cared about that he could finally breathe. He lay there, arms and legs spread out as he took in grateful gulps of air. The air was slightly warm because of the fireplace and the presence of so many people, but he didn't mind. Though cool, fresh air would have felt better, he was sure that it would have dried out his throat too, maybe even more than the comfortably warm air he was currently inhaling did.

He felt Voldemort's magic, that was surrounding him, press inwards a few times. It took a few moments for him to understand that it was a facsimile of a knock. He sent back a grunt at the man using his own magic.

An amused voice asked him, '**_Are you really a demon_**_?'_

_No, _he replied tiredly, '_But it's not as if a demon wouldn't say that too.'_

**_'Correct.'_** The man answered, before suggesting, **_'Why don't you prove that you aren't one?'_**

_'Well, I'd have to know how someone can prove me a demon before I can prove them wrong, right?'_

The man sent him a feeling that seemed to convey that he agreed with him. It was surreal. Even though it had been many years since he had last seen Voldemort, he remembered quite well that Voldemort didn't do agreeable, at least not with Harry Potter.

Unbeknownst to him, Voldemort, being an extremely powerful and skilled wizard, had managed to successfully manipulate his magic to make this exchange between them audible to everyone in this room. He hadn't acted foolishly though, and made everything audible. Oh no, everything the people in the room heard passed through him first and only if he considered it innocuous did anyone else hear it. He had even taken care of the prospect of the boy hearing things by sending the information directly to the minds of the Blacks and Rosier. It was a technique particular to him, he had realized. He could use his magic in a manner that made people think he was speaking right in their ears while he was, in fact, speaking just outside their Occlumency barriers, if they had any.

He was naturally curious about this child. He had never been foolish enough to mess with demons, but if there was a demon possessed baby right in front of him, he really couldn't be blamed if he decided to meddle with the situation. At least, that's what he had told himself when he intervened before Walburga could successfully choke the boy to death.

It was such a great learning opportunity that he simply couldn't allow the boy to get out of his grasp. It didn't hurt that the demon seemed to be assimilated quite well within the child's body, if indeed, it was a demon. He wasn't quite convinced of that yet but he really couldn't come up with any reasonable assumptions as to why the boy could speak, even in his mind.

Obviously, that didn't mean that he couldn't come up with any ideas whatsoever. He was Lord Voldemort and he never failed at anything. It could be that all children had similarly well-developed minds but somehow, he rather thought that he would have heard about it at least once before that day, what with all those Purebloods who always went around bragging about their drool bags.

There was also the chance that the ritual had managed to develop the brain, but that didn't seem very likely. It could also be that the boy was simply a very smart prodigy but the thoughts that he had been privy to till now seemed particularly dim and so that option failed to convince him even more than the demon possession one. So he was stuck with the demon possession theory till Romulus and Walburga were proved wrong. Admittedly, there was a chance that they were right but it wouldn't be due to any talent on their side. After a lifetime of being wrong, they were bound to get something right every once in a while.

These were the thoughts that ran through his mind as he heard the boy deny being a demon and then ask for ways that he could prove it. He decided to humour the boy.

**_'How about your aura? They're supposed to be black if a demon's there.'_**

Voldemort felt the worry that the boy was feeling pass into him and felt a momentary flash of pleasure at being able to make a demon feel worried, not of course, that he was completely sold on the idea that it _was_ a demon.

_'What if there are splotches? Black ones?' _the boy sounded worried as he asked that.

Voldemort reassured him, feeling amused, '**_That wouldn't matter very much. If you were a demon, it would be completely black.'_**

_'Oh, that's okay then, it's a mix of green and blue.' _

Voldemort stared at the pale baby in bemusement. It was either that or laughing and he emphatically did not laugh in public. Was the demon a fool? Or was Melania right and this was all a big misunderstanding? Did the person who was currently in control of Cepheus Black's body not understand one simple concept?

**_'How do you know that?' _**he asked, just to ensure that he hadn't heard wrong.

There was a pause before he received a hesitant response, '_I saw it?'_

Voldemort heard a gasp and knew it had to have from Lady Black. Everyone knew it was the McMillan trait to see magic and if the boy really could do it, then it would seem the trait had been passed on. He ignored it though, choosing instead to ask, '**_Is that so? Then what do I look like?'_**

The green eyes widened, before screwing in concentration.

* * *

Harry's mind was racing. He didn't know why, but when he had said that his aura was greenish blue, it seemed to have made the room even more hostile than before. Though when he had said that he had seen his aura, a wave of excitement had passed through the people standing there and Melania had even gasped. Her eyes, that so resembled the ones that he had once possessed had widened in some indecipherable emotion and she had taken a half step towards him before stopping. Of course, he knew that no one except Voldemort had actually heard what he had said and everything else must simply be a coincidence, but he still couldn't get it out of his mind that they somehow knew what words he passed on to Voldemort using his magic.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, to tell them what colour his aura was so that here would be no more attempts on his life while they got someone to verify it, even if he knew that Voldemort was simply toying with him. As long as he kept his lies to a minimum, there was a reasonable chance that he'd be able to get away with minimal damage. Now though, when he had been asked what colour Voldemort's aura was, he was starting to heartily regret it. He should have known that Voldemort would find a way to make even his safest choice seem like a jump into a pit full of poisonous vipers without the reassurance of having a wand.

He wasn't to go down without even trying though, even if he didn't know what was happening, why it was happening and even if what he _did_ know would barely fill a single page with a liberal application of pictures. His brain cells working three times faster than usual, he thought about what he knew about the man. The man's soul was damaged, so there would probably be black spots in there. He really regretted that he didn't know the meaning of different colours. It would have proved really useful but since he didn't have time to waste, he thought about everything he could in order to figure out the colour. He even looked at the man in an attempt to ascertain whether his luck had actually worked out and he could see magic. No luck. He just wished that he could see Voldemort's aura while the man did some magic. That was the only way one could see magic.

Wait…he had seen the man do magic though, hadn't he? He had spent most of his early life dodging the man's attempts on his life; he'd even had the man's soul inside him! That thought brought him to a stop before he started exploring that train of thought a bit more slowly. There was a reason his aura was greenish blue, not just primarily blue, wasn't there? He had spent his formative years as the man's Horcrux, and that had led to the Horcrux itself forming magic, magic that had interacted with his own and caused it to gather a green tint.

'_Green!'_ he shouted using his magic. '_Your aura's green.'_

He saw Voldemort arch his eyebrows at him before turning to look at Melania and ask in a manner that implied that he was just continuing with this farce because of its entertainment factor, "Madam is my aura green?"

Her pupils contracted and seemed to almost disappear for a few moments before coming back, the green withdrawing to its usual position. She gave a short and succinct answer, "Yes."

**_'That is all good and well but you seem to have forgotten something. _**

There was something so smug in his voice that Harry knew instantly it didn't bode well for him.

'**_Children have a white aura. Colours appear from emotions and you simply don't have any powerful enough for them to manifest themselves using your magic. So, while you might have guessed my aura correctly, you were wrong about your own… Which seems quite strange, doesn't it?'_** Voldemort asked with a cruel smirk on his face.

Feeling panicked, Harry shouted out, all those years lying his ass out taking over '_Don't ask __**me **__about that! First I was in a lot of pain, and next thing I know, I'm in even more pain except I've actually got words to describe it that I can't even utter!'_

Feeling emboldened by the fact that no one had cursed him yet, he decided to go on while he was still ahead, making sure to mix the lies and the truth enough that no one would be able to figure out which was which. A generous amount of really unbelievable data would also help. It had been his experience that clever people were more likely to believe unbelievable things than ones that actually made sense. Even though it was really illogical, the bigger the whooper, more were its chances of being believed. '_Where am I anyway? I thought I was at Hogwarts! The Forbidden Forest!'_

He saw Voldemort look at him with a faintly incredulous expression that coming from any other Slytherin would have been tantamount to a snorting, throwing their hands up in exasperation, sneering and wrinkling their noses in incredulity. He adopted a scared and slightly ashamed tone at seeing that, bringing all his acting talents to play and hoping he didn't look merely constipated before saying, '_It was a bet, you know? The Headmaster told us not to go there and I was dared. It was a matter of honour!'_ he said with a flash of inspiration. '_Except now I can't move and everyone's trying to kill me.' _ He finished in a doleful yet indignant tone.

It wasn't even as if he was lying. He _had_ been at Hogwarts before he died, and the Headmaster _had_ told him not to go into the Forbidden Forest. He had even taken a dare to go in there while he was finishing his seventh year of schooling at Hogwarts. There was simply a large gap between the three incidents. The bit of honour was thrown in simply because he knew that purebloods had a bid deal with honour, it ought to buy him Brownie points, or at least, help reduce some of the negative points he had no doubt amassed. He just hoped it worked.

**_'Is that so?_****' **Voldemort asked in a tone that seemed to say that he wasn't willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and was just acting. He was quite sure though, that anyone who had been less acquainted with the man would have been taken in, it was only his knowledge of the monster that resided behind that deceptively human face that prevented his believing that the man was really willing to take him seriously and believe him innocent till proved guilty. **_'Are you trying to say that you are indeed Cepheus Black who has remembered his past life?_** **_What was your family name, if you don't mind my asking?'_**

Harry felt like tearing his hair out at that. He understood that simply saying that he did indeed mind wasn't going to cut it. What name was he supposed to use now? He couldn't choose a totally made up family name because then he might assume he had been a Muggleborn and that would be a can of worms he wouldn't touch even if he had a two feet long pole. At the same time, he couldn't use a name that Voldemort or even anyone was too well acquainted with because then they might ask him questions he would not be able to answer.

Just as he had decided to use the name Weasley, hoping that they were as proliferate in the past as they had been in his time and hence give him a chance to hide in their big brood, he felt Voldemort's magic tighten its hold on him, restricting the space his magic could occupy even more. He understood why a moment later as the man said, **_'I would prefer it if you didn't attempt any falsehoods. It might be a little…unwise under the circumstances.'_**

Harry understood perfectly well and it was with deep foreboding that he told the truth, '_Potter'._

**_You _****didn't ****_even make the attempt.'_** Voldemort sounded genuinely surprised at that.

_I'm not an idiot, even if you might think I am.'_ Harry answered resentfully. He wouldn't tell them what Potter he was truthfully, he told himself, he simply wouldn't. It would be entirely too risky to give Voldemort even a hope that he might be able to find out what was happening in the future. As the constricting hold on his magic loosened, he realised with relief that he might not need to and could even lie if required. He just had to make sure that he chose the name of a Potter that had lived sufficiently long ago for no one to catch him if he made a mistake. He was feeling really a lot of resentment towards Voldemort for burning Potter Manor to the ground during the First Wizarding War, if only he had gotten a chance to look at the family tree that most Purebloods kept in their family manors, it would have been much easier.

There was nothing that could be done for it, he told himself, but to make a name. He wondered what to use. Hadn't Professor McGonagall once told him that the Potters had traditionally been named after kings?

_'Bill'_ he told Voldemort. It could be taken as a short form for William or anything else required. He wasn't picky.

He could practically hear the derision in Voldemort's voice as he asked, "Was there a Bill Potter within the last century?"

He could also hear the triumph in the man's voice at being able to catch him in his lies and so Harry hurriedly asked, '_What makes you think that I lived in the past century?'_

**_Because your manner of speaking can't belong to any time further past?' _**The man sounded like he thought Harry was an idiot for asking that, something that he himself was coming to think might be true in this case. Hermione had always told him that one day his impulsive tendencies would get him in trouble, Harry thought despondently. He just hadn't thought that it would happen so soon in his new life. He felt like hitting his head as a thoughtful expression stole over Melania's face before she said slowly, "I do remember that Charlus Potter's son disappeared from Hogwarts never to be found. The family trees evidently showed him to be dead a couple of days after his disappearance. He was in the same year as Potter's current wife, I think. Isn't their son the same age as Sirius?" ****

WHAT! Charlus Potter had been his grandfather! He had heard there had been a great scandal when Dorea Black ran away with Charlus Potter but he had assumed it was because the Potters were a light family. He had never in his wildest dreams imagined that the scandal might have been because of the cradle robbing implications of the actions of the Head of House Potter. He didn't get much time to think about this revelation as Melania continued, "His name was William or Bilius or something like that, I think."

The look she gave him seemed to convey he was a fool of the worst sort before she added, "Though Bill seems like a singularly inappropriate nickname."

What was he supposed to say, Harry wondered with a wince. The name had belonged to one of the most regal and responsible yet likeable man with a sense of humour that he had known. Bill Weasley had ben everything he had wanted to emulate when he had been in is teens and the man had slowly become like an elder brother. Another name that had come to his name had been Rufus but that wasn't something he ever wanted to be called, though Cepheus was coming close.

"I don't believe any of this," Rosier butted in with an angry frown on his face. "I can't believe you're all falling for this."

The one man that he still didn't know the name of said in a tone that seemed to imply that he had had so many shocks that he simply couldn't muster up feelings for any more, "That's the thing, isn't it? He's not trying to convince us of anything other than the fact that one, he's not a demon. Two, he's the reincarnated son of Charlus Potter. And three, you're all idiots for suspecting him of any sort of dastardly plot other than wanting to fill his stomach."

"And you believe that?" Walburga asked, sounding incredulous.

The man shrugged as he said, "Not particularly no, but it's not as if there isn't a precedent"

As Rosier looked on at the man like he had committed some sort of crime, he said defensively, "What? If the Wizengamot can track souls who have been subjected to multiple life sentences and make them remember all their crimes all through their past lives, surely it's not that much of a stretch that the boy can remember his past life after a run in with some soul magic."

He added after a little thinking, "After all, someone had to discover it the first time."

The man Harry thought was Orion Black said, "I don't believe that either Romulus or Alphard are right but since I don't know that they're wrong either, I'm afraid that certain precautionary measures must be taken."

"Like locking him in a gold cage and placing him in the capable hands of our Ministry! If nothing else, they'll manage to find out what isn't true!" Rosier burst out.

Melania said in a loud voice, "Why don't we simply ask Lord Voldemort to check his magical core and find out what colour it is?"

Orion looked doubtful and more than a little suspicious as he finally dropped down onto the bed in exhaustion but nothing of his tiredness showed in his voice when he asked, "What good would that do, Mother?"

The look that Melania shot at Orion would have made Severus Snape quiver in his shoes and hide behind a bush as she said in a voice practically dripping with sarcasm, "Because demonic cores are fiery while Wizarding cores are white, black or shades of grey?"

The look of chagrin on everyone's faces would have been humorous except he didn't think he could laugh even if Voldemort turned himself into a clown and sang _A Cauldron Full of Hot Strong Love_ by Celestina Warbeck at the top of his lungs in the Ministry Atrium.

Harry was the recipient of a murderous red gaze and he realized with dismay that he might have _accidentally_ broadcasted that image. He felt a weird, painful tingle as Voldemort did something with his magic that involved a lot of poking and prodding before the red tinge of the man's eyes faded till his irises assumed a deep purple colour. He didn't think it had anything to do with the lessening if the man's ire, more likely he had gotten distracted.

He was proven right when Voldemort said at large, "It's green."

Melania uttered with admirable composure, "Or that."

Alphard asked, "Are you sure that you're simply not colour blind and making a mistake? It might happen, you know."

There was a blank look on Voldemort's face as he answered, "It's white. With green streaks."

"Which green?" Orion asked; which had no relevance to anything but Voldemort answered all the same, "Emerald."

"That's completely all right," was what Melania said to that.

Needless to say, she was recipient to a lot of incredulous stares and not just a few suspicious ones.

**A/N; I don't know what happened to this chapter. All I can say is this, Harry's lying through his teeth, a result of his impulsiveness and the habit was cultivated at the end of his life as harry Potter, something that will be explained in the story. Voldemort knows Harry's lying just like Harry is aware that Voldemort knows. Rosier doesn't care whether he's lying or not as long as he gets Harry in his clutches. Walburga will agree to anything if it means she gets to keep her son, even if it means he might be the reincarnated soul of William Potter, someone Harry isn't but just made up. I was thinking that maybe they'd say that the guy's ghost was still hanging around but when I got to that point, I couldn't figure out how to put it in. Alphard hasn't decided anything yet as he considers it to be none of his business. If he's got an opinion he'll give it but he won't be making any assumptions, sort of a stick up for the underdog kind of thing. Harry, understandably enough, doesn't care what it takes as long as he doesn't get given over to the Ministry, where he will no doubt be handed over to the Unspeakables; or killed outright. **

**On another note, would anyone who knows a lot of the characters that would be present in this era like to help by giving me their names. I know some of them and have put them in the plot but there are always empty seats left. I'm going to need characters as Cepheus grows up and meets people and if I don' find enough characters that are satisfactory, I'll have to put in OCs, something that I'm not very keen to do, though I understand I'll have to.**

**Please do review! **


	9. Insanity and curiosity

Disclaimer: I'm black haired, black eyed and still living with my parents. Do you still think I'm J K Rowling?

_Harry speaking using/to magic_

**_Voldemort speaking using/to magic_**

**A/N: So sorry for the late update but i got sick and then one of my favorite shows started on TV in the 2 to 3 slot, which is my computer time slot so that means that the next updates are going to be slow too. But it's only for the next 2-3 weeks.**

**Now, thank you lostfeather1, geetac, history, mizzrazz72, Miss Nailia, Guest, Jay, sad sabrin for reviewing. Just when I start thinking that I had left the story for too long for the inspiration to come, I am proved wrong by reading the reviews. **

Chapter 8

Harry felt like crying at that moment. Everything was moving at entirely too fast a pace for his delicate babyish constitution. One second they were accusing him of being a demon and attempting to murder him, next second they were acting like he would never lie and every word coming out of his mouth must be the truth, and the very next second after that, they were naively believing everything he said and cheerily discussing how completely abnormal colours of magic were completely natural if associated with him. He was starting to think that there really might have been something in those rumours of insanity running in the Black family. He could think of nothing else that would make this happen.

Voldemort, he could understand. The man was always supposed to have some sort of ulterior motive that would only make sense when he had all the pieces of the puzzle, Rosier was realistic, Evan Rosier had been a nasty piece of work and it was no long stretch of imagination to accept that this member of his family was the same. It was the rest that shocked him to his bones. What happened to Slytherin cunning? What happened to cursing first and asking question later? What, most importantly, happened to all the Dark Magic use that could make people do anything the caster wanted?

He didn't know much of Orion except that the man hadn't allowed his wife to disinherit Sirius. Alphard, he knew, was the uncle who had provided Sirius with the mean to start out on his own without having to depend on the Potters' charity. Walburga was a screaming bitch who never hesitated in making her opinion on people perfectly clear. He really didn't know much about Melania except that she appeared to be Orion Black's mother and the current Lady Black. The Lordships had been abolished after the Second Wizarding War along with the hereditary seats many families had held in the Wizengamot. It had become a true Parliament with almost all the members of the legislature and Judiciary either Half Blood or Muggleborns with a few notable exceptions like the Weasleys, the Smiths, the Longbottoms and the Bones. Lycoris, he didn't know at all.

It was quite understandable that he was simply bewildered at what was happening around him, especially since now, everyone seemed to be ignoring him, except Rosier who was glaring at him. Finally, a man with jet black hair gathered together at the back with a silver ribbon came towards him and picked him up. The man had laughter lines on his face and a cheery face that seemed liable to break into a smile at any moment. He had bright grey eyes that had a strange sort of luminescence to them. He could definitely see the resemblance to Sirius and if he hadn't known that Orion was sitting on the bed, he would have expected the man holding him to be Sirius' father. As it was, he understood that the man was Alphard Black.

The man looked at him with understand on his face and said sympathetically, "It must be tough, being a child again."

Harry didn't know how to answer the man with Voldemort forming a cage around his magic. His magic seemed to be the only way he was capable of communicating at all at that period of time, so he simply shrugged. It was as the man started rocking him while the other occupants of the room discussed what was to be done next that Harry became aware of a strange buzzing at the very edge of his awareness. He felt a sense of disquiet as he contemplated whether he really ought to before trying to find a chink in the cage around his magic that kept it stuck near his body. He stopped trying after a while as he realized that it a completely futile exercise serving only to tire him out and simply lay relaxed in Alphard's arms as the man now started piping into the conversation going on.

Harry was starting to feel quite sleepy as the adrenaline rush that he had been leaning on so heavily started dissipating. This was why it took him so long to realize that the buzzing sound was due to some sort of magical working and that the only reason he could hear it was because of the close contact his magic currently had with Voldemort's. He was under no illusion that had it not been the case, he would have been as oblivious to the sensation as everyone else. It seemed like Voldemort was casting some sort of nonverbal spell and it took him a while to realise that it was of the same type as Legilimency, though somewhat different in nature. He didn't know what the man was doing but with the tight hold Voldemort had on him, he was reluctant to come to any hypothesis since there was a very good chance that Voldemort would find out. He sincerely did not want to correctly guess what the man was dong only to have Voldemort find out. He still remembered what an extremely private person the man was and he had no desire to find out what he was being so stealthy about in such close proximity of the man.

He received a faint sense of approval from Voldemort that made him blanch. It was one thing to hypothetically suppose something, completely another to find out he was right. He made a firm resolution to refrain from thinking anything vaguely clever, interesting, and intriguing or anything remotely stimulating. It would be jus his luck if the Dark Lord ended up as obsessed with him in this incarnation as he had been in the previous one. It was, needless to say, something he was very eager to avoid.

It proved to be an unnecessarily long venture as it took his three days to realise how to keep a firm enough hold on his magic that it didn't disappear into the ether completely, leaving him a squib. It appeared that whatever he had gone through had successfully detached his magic from his body. Though it was slowly starting to reattach itself to him, it would probably take years before the connection solidified enough that he could ignore it for longer than a few minutes and have it vanish. At least, that was what he gathered from what Healer Kern had said. Evidently, she worked predominantly in the paediatrics and gynaecology ward, though there wasn't anything specific like that in St Mungo's. She had also been the one who had helped Walburga birth him, an event he was very happy that he didn't remember with any clarity.

Even then, some sort of specialist in magic had been called and all he had done was hum and hmm and then say things the Blacks already knew. It _did_ make them feel inordinately pleased with themselves so Harry couldn't really say anything, not that he could speak anyway. Voldemort did make a few amusing comments but Harry stuck firmly to his resolution and turned a deaf ear towards him. After a while, the Dark Lord seemed to realise that talking wasn't particularly useful, or maybe he thought Harry had simply fallen asleep as he had closed his eyes shut some time ago. The result of all this was that Voldemort had endeavoured to teach Melania and Orion how to cast a spell that was used in ancient times to stop a person from doing magic instead of the magic inhibiting cuffs that were used in more modern times. The reason for that seemed to be that the person the spell had been cast on could still do magic, just not affect anything outside of a metre radius.

Finally though, everything that could be done was planned, everything that could be said was achieved and everyone except Melania, Orion and Walburga left the house. Melania simply left the room to retire to her room. It was only after he was put to sleep in the bed between Orion and Walburga that he reflected over everything that had happened and came to one startling conclusion. Only a few minutes after the entire ruckus started, everyone's expressions had slowly started clouding! It had been such a steady process that it was only after reflecting on the faces at the very beginning and the faces at the very ending that he realised that anything untoward had happened at all. The only people who had been left untouched were Voldemort and Rosier.

It was a damning conclusion.

* * *

Rosier knelt on his knees in front of his Lord as the man sat in a throne like chair in the Master's study of Rosier Manor. It was the Head of House's chair the man occupied and though he knew Romulus should be the one in it, he made himself comfortable in it. He liked showing Romulus who was the superior even in the man's own house. It was the problem of all the old followers; they tended to believe that just because they had been the first, they deserved some sort of accolade. Recognition he could understand, reward for work done well was natural, but the notion that he owed them something for being the first of his Knights was something that was to be firmly stamped out.

It was with eyes that flashed red that Voldemort asked in a voice with more than just a hint of Parseltongue in it, "And what, if anything, do you have for me?"

Romulus maintained a stoic expression but he paled nonetheless. It was a compromise Voldemort was willing to accept for now, it wouldn't do to get rid of all the ingenuity the man had to offer but such reprehensible mistakes simply couldn't be allowed. If Romulus wasn't required back in the Ministry so soon, he would have paling under the weight of more than just words. It was distasteful but Voldemort knew that he still wasn't in a position that he could make everyone dance to his whims with impunity.

Romulus said in a composed voice, "It seemed to go well till the very end when it, unfortunately, failed."

"I gathered _that."_ It was a hiss of displeasure that more resembled something Voldemort's familiar Nagini would utter than something he would but such was the result of some of the more volatile rituals he had undergone.

It was a tone that Romulus was well acquainted with, if more used to having it directed at people other than him. He hurriedly continued, "We don't yet know whether there was something wrong with the calculations or if it was one time occurrence or whether we chose the wrong time. It seemed to go well enough till other soul was called, then it seemed the tethers simply couldn't be attached to it and the soul returned to its previous abode."

"And can you even prove that it is the exchange of souls that causes the change and not something else?"

Romulus nodded eagerly as he said, "There was that Prewett. I saw him do magic right in front of my eyes but the day they went to get his magic weighed at the hospital, it was gone. It had been a simple enough matter to cast the soul tracking charm on him when his father started making noises against the Light."

Voldemort was intrigued when he heard that. The soul tracking Charm was a very reliable charm, or as reliable as it could be without having a way to determine whether it actually worked or simply chose any soul to indicate. It had evidently been tested with a person who had ended up being a seer in the next life and had remembered her previous life on her own. If the Charm had indeed shown that the boy's soul was not within the boy…the possibilities were endless. He raised his eyebrow at Rosier in a silent demand for more.

Rosier obliged, sounding a bit regretful, "The soul didn't stay for long. The charm stopped registering its presence after a few days. I had kept a close eye on the girl it showed and it was clear that the soul wasn't adapting well. There were at least one case of accidental magic but it seemed to make the Muggle sick till she simply died one day. Heart attack, the Muggle authorities called it, but it was a clear case of magical exhaustion when I checked."

Voldemort blinked at that before asking slowly, "Then killing Mudbloods…"

Romulus shook his head regretfully, "Seems to have no effect. The boy's still a squib. There are talks of sending him to a Muggle school."

Voldemort tapped his fingers on his knee thoughtfully before saying, "There are recorded cases where killing a particular Mudblood caused the return of magic to a squib."

Romulus nodded and confessed, "That's why we took the boy. If it was simply a case of the magic being used up that causes one to become a squib permanently, it would give us a long time still to experiment. The Blacks are one of the more magically powerful families out there and if nothing else, we could have killed the Muggle to find out if all or the leftover or any magic at all returned."

Voldemort stared at his follower before asking incredulously, "Haven't you ever taken any healing?"

Romulus looked confused at that apparently unrelated question as he replied, "No, My Lord."

Voldemort shook his head at the stupidity and the depths that his followers could fall to as he told him, "Small children are usually kept inside family houses and near their parents not just to make their core grow. There is something in the blood of a Magical being that requires a circulation of magic along with blood. While this circulation of magic becomes less important as the child grows, it is almost always fatal for the younger children to go without. Black probably would have been dead within a few days."

Romulus blanched at that. It was evident that he hadn't wanted the boy to die. Even if whatever he did succeeded and the boy's soul interchanged with the Muggles, Voldemort had a sneaking suspicion that Romulus would have simply performed the ritual again the moment it looked like Black was getting incurably sick. There was no doubt that the muggle would have been killed moments later. There was something to be said in the way the Purebloods considered Muggles as something not quiet human. For Voldemort himself, it was different. The very humanity of the Muggles made him despise them enough to wish their eradication.

It had been his hope that if they managed to find out that all these beliefs that the Dark Purebloods had were simply propagated to sink them below any use, he would have been able to make them see him as a second coming of Salazar Slytherin in the form of his Heir. If nothing else, he could have always found the truth and held it above their heads forever. But the more he dug, the more he was starting to realise that the Dark that he loved didn't mean just a different type of magic. The dark contained people as well, people who were shrouded in shadows, people who were mixed with the light and more importantly, people who ran things from behind the scenes. It was a sobering, yet addictive realisation. If he succeeded, why, the entire world would be his for the taking!

Voldemort looked at Rosier and then his lips upturned into a smile that could have been in no way called pleasant. He'd forgive, but not forget this failure of Romulus'. After all, the man had been doing so well; Voldemort could definitely afford to give him another chance. He might hate Dumbledore but the man still had at least one idea right. Given a second chance, a man would do anything to prove himself worthy… provided that the man was loyal.

The rest of the next hour was spent in making plans before Romulus took his leave to return to the Ministry, there was a lot of information management that he had to do. He left thankful that he wouldn't have to suffer the physical effects of his Lord's displeasure like Orion Black had to. It was also with maybe another understanding of the Dark Lord's character that Romulus left with. Evidently, the man was more tolerant of ignorance than incompetence, though for how long he dreaded to think. He had a sneaking suspicion that the next time he made a mistake; it wouldn't be set aside so easily, ignorance was in the end just a form of incompetence. The only reason he didn't show any effects of the darker kinds of magic was because they invariably left a residue that was visible to the stronger witches and wizards, many of whom often found cause to frequent the Ministry.

Healing was an art that he was no good at and that meant he needed a teacher. He thought of the woman Lady Black had called to look over the Black child who was evidently a late Potter child and how she had behaved in a competent yet discreet manner. The very fact that she had been used for such delicate manners spoke in her favour but Romulus was not going to leave anything to chance and would carry out his own investigations. However, he had a feeling he and Healer Kern were going to be closely acquainted in the future.

* * *

October 26, 1964

Walburga watched as all three of her children took their afternoon nap. After what had happened, she had refused to leave any of her children alone without a trustworthy guardian nearby. Usually, it was Kreacher who took turns with her during the day, but that day, her mother in law had come to visit and so she had given the elf a much needed rest. The usual elf who took care of the children, Floppy, had come down with some sort of elfish flu and didn't want to be near the children in case they got sick as well. Walburga concurred and so Kreacher had been saddled with handling three energetic children all on his own for the entire morning.

She looked up as the door opened into the main chamber of the nursery and her mother in law was ushered in by Kreacher. She rose to greet her. It was only after the proper greetings had been exchanged that. Walburga let out a little of the excitement she had been feeling and said with a pleased smile, "Cepheus said his first word today."

Melania said in surprise, "At ten months?"

Walburga nodded but then admitted, "It was 'no' and not mother but it's still better than no word at all."

Melania blinked a little before asking with a frown on her face, "What about teeth? Did he go through his teething woes already?"

Walburga let out a little gurgle of laughter at that as she said, "He finally took to sucking his hand."

Melania's frown deepened as she scolded her, "I did not mean how he reacted to teething. I asked how came he to have had teeth long enough to speak a word such as 'no'?"

A dour look came over Walburga's face at the rebuke and she said seriously, "Evidently, there is such a high concentration of magic in his teeth that if they hadn't been milk teeth, they would have to be vanished."

Melania shook her head as she looked at the crib where Cepheus lay and a shadow seemed to pass over her face. She looked first at Cepheus and then at Walburga before seeming to have come to a decision. She shook out her wand from the folds of her sleeves and proceeded to cast a privacy spell. Walburga took it to mean that Melania did not want to chance the children waking up and hearing what she was going to say since the spell created a barrier around the two women that stopped sound from exiting but not entering.

The only other assumption would have been that Melania suspected someone else in the house might have eavesdropped on their conversation, which was completely ridiculous. The house at Grimmauld Place had been in the Black family for a long time… long enough for it to have become at least slightly aware. It certainly knew enough to prevent anyone from listening into private conversations of its masters.

She looked at Melania questioningly in response to which her mother in law stated slowly, "I have been wondering something… and your words simply served to remind me of it. You and Orion seem to have taken it in stride but something still rankles in my mind and Lycoris agrees with me."

Walburga pursed her lips a little at that. She did not appreciate hearing that her mother in law did not consider her a proper parent and indeed, felt the need to talk over her fears with someone else. One might assume that she was being hasty in thinking that it was Cepheus she was talking about but she kept an ear on the family grapevine enough know what gossip was being passed along. She knew it more than likely simply meant that they were concerned but it still irked her and so she bit out stiffly, "Everything is completely fine. Just because Orion and I do not go around all a-twitter does not mean we haven't taken proper steps to handle the situation."

Melania made a conciliating gesture as she said, "Of course not. I simply meant to say that I've thought it over and find it a bit strange how composedly you are taking the fact that your son has remembered his past life." When that didn't seem to serve any purpose, she added, "I felt a natural curiosity about the matter too."

"Curiosity made the kneazle lap the Draught of death," Walburga bit out waspishly.

"Yes, and prudence made the hedge witch feed him the antidote." Melania said agreeably.

Walburga looked at the polite yet determined expression on her mother in law's face and unbent enough to say, "Cepheus only seems to know bits of how he came to die and his name. He doesn't even remember who gave birth to William Potter. He is a bit more tenacious than normal and masters things quite rapidly but he's already gone over it all once so that isn't surprising."

Melania blinked at that and then said, "So the failed ritual only affected his soul enough for him to remember bits and pieces?"

"Yes," agreed Walburga. "Even his disposition is of a child. He knows he's supposed to act more mature but unless he's actively thinking about it, he's just like a child, if older than his current age."

Melania looked thoughtful at that but abstained from saying anything further on the subject, choosing instead to change the subject. "How is Sirius?"

Walburga could feel her face become even more waspish at that question as she said, "He seems to have failed to realise that perfectly fine trees don't usually fall over the heads of children."

Melania blinked at that before asking cautiously, "And how did the tree not fall on him? No one bothered to tell me."

Walburga remembered what had happened and the reason her son wasn't hurt beyond a slight scare and said bemusedly, "Alphard was also at that picnic at the Greengrass's. He said that the moment Sirius' magic registered the danger, Alphard was notified."

Melania looked disapproving at that, something that probably had more to do with the mention of her brother than the way her little puppy was saved and she was proved right when Melania said, "He really should have done something before matters could get this far if he has seer-ish tendencies."

She looked more offended at not knowing of such an important matter than the fact that Alphard ought to have done something beforehand and so Walburga said innocently, feeling gleeful, "Oh, didn't we tell you? Alphard is Sirius' magical godfather."

Melania looked so gobsmacked at that that Walburga couldn't help it and said, "We are even holding a godparent ritual for Cepheus and Regulus on their birthdays. You are of course, invited as we are thinking of making an occasion of it."

As she saw that Melania was swiftly getting over her shock, Walburga added condescendingly, "here is no need for you to worry you'll still be the legal godmother to Sirius. We wouldn't want to deprive you of your precious grandson's presence were anything to happen to Orion and me."

Walburga thought smugly that if her mother-in-law had been any less well-bred, she would have sputtered at that. As it was, she had to settle for saying with the tatters of her composure drawn around her like a cloak, "I am sure I'll still have my grandson even if I am no longer his godmother as well, but your resolution is still appreciated."

Walburga smirked at that but let Melania have her pride.

* * *

**A/N: The next chapter's going to be over the godparent choosing which is a very important part of the story and will be explained quite well, hopefully. Please review!**


	10. Funerals and Feathers

Disclaimer: I'm black haired, black eyed and still living with my parents. Do you still think I'm J K Rowling?

**A/N: Thank you geetac , Relent1ess , yuiop, Gemini Peverell ,** **jboat for reviewing. I am sorry for the late update but I am hopeful that next month, I'm going to be able to update more regularly. The chapter's a bit longer to compensate for the long wait. To jboat, I haven't thought about it, but your idea has merit and it would make sense if there were psychological repercussions but I have never considered Harry to be a well-balanced individual anyway.**

* * *

CHAPTER 9

_They say that you never really know someone till you've shared all of each other's deepest, darkest secrets. Thinking of it like that, I must have never really known Al. My son, __**the Dark Lord.**__It just shows, doesn't it, you never really know anything, even when you're dead and buried, and starting over a new life to boot. _

_-An Excerpt from the journal of Cepheus Pollux Black_

**It was a bright**, **sunny day, at complete odds with what was happening that day. It ought to have been a rainy, dreary day, the heavens themselves showing their sorrow at Hermione's death****…**** but it was not to be. Harry would still have appreciated it if it hadn't been a day that was fit more for a wedding than a funeral. He looked at Ginny's hand that he was clutching tightly and wondered distantly whether he was hurting her. He looked at her face but except for the dried tear tracks down her cheeks, she looked completely all right, if a little tired. He looked at his other side, where Ron was sitting in a daze, simply looking at the ornate table his wife's body was lying on. The funeral was in the garden of the Burrow, the same place where so long ago, Ron and Hermione had said their vows to always be there for each other. Except now Hermione was gone and Ron was left all alone. It had come as a surprise, finding out that Hermione was sick, it had come even more as a surprise that the Healers had failed to heal her in just a few days. By the time they found out she was incurable, they were past surprise and had made their way to shock. What had seemed like a simple flu had turned out to be a new disease the Healers could cure.**

** When the end came, they were all tired, all their tears wrung out. At least they had had the time to say their goodbyes, something Harry had never thought would happen with Hermione. When they were teenagers, he had always thought that they would go in a blaze, or at least in a surprise, killed by someone's wand. Nowadays, the idea of death had become much milder, going out in their sleep, or maybe** **due to old age. He had always thought he would be the one to go first, what with his heart condition, he had never thought it would be Hermione. Even Ginny had been earlier in line, what with her propensity for death defying stunts. Still, they had all shed their tears, said their goodbyes and though he was still angry that something so common such as a cold had brought Hermione down, it was something they were all resigned to and had even accepted to small degrees. As Mrs Weasley had told them, Muggleborns died early, usually because they simply weren't accustomed to the germs going around the Wizarding World, and what was mild for Wizard raised children, was often deadly for adult Muggleborns, and incurable to boot. It was horrible but Hermione had told them all a story about how she had once read that colonisers had brought diseases to new lands that they themselves weren't affected by yet killed the natives in hundreds. By that time, her memory had been so far gone that she didn't remember the dates, the places or even the people. She wasn't even herself enough to figure out that there was something wrong with that scenario, but by that time Harry had been thankful for such small favours. At least she'd go peacefully. **

**It was lost in these memories that he dimly registered water engulf Hermione's body to leave a crystal casket her body was visible through. He was strangely apathetic to the spectacle. After all, Hermione wasn't really there, it was simply a shell that she had once inhabited. He was sure that if anyone had heard his thoughts, they would have thought him the worst friend ever. Most people there were crying, even those who had never known her in anything except professionally. It was simply that he had become somewhat immune to death. The thought of his own coming demise had necessitated that. Sometimes, he woke up in drenched in sweat, having had nightmares about what would happen after his death, scared out of his wits. But he didn't want to think of that now, it was much better to think that Hermione would go to heaven and watch over them like a silent angel. He had heard enough truth in his life to realise that sometimes, lies were all that kept one from crumbling. He couldn't afford to crumble now, there was simply too much to do. The least of which was not that Al had been strangely taciturn the past week, looking as if he was in some horrible dilemma. There had been no love lost between his aunt and him, but Harry knew it had been different for Al and Hermione. They had always been each other's favourites and he knew it had to be hitting Al hard. **

* * *

Harry woke up with a start, sweating buckets yet chilled to the bone. It was times like this that he was glad for his little stuffed snake toy. It comforted him, letting him know that what he was dreaming wasn't real, that it wasn't actually happening. He was groggy enough with sleep that he didn't remember that it had already happened once. He fell back into a fitful sleep.

* * *

**He walked over to Al, careful to keep his movements slow and loud so as not to surprise his son. He felt a burst of irritation that he quickly covered up, the boy had gotten over his meek persona with a bang, doing everything in the most dangerous manner possible. Except for the stiffening of Al's shoulders, he gave no indication that he had registered Harry's presence but Harry didn't take it badly. If he didn't have to, he would have preferred to ignore everyone too. He was just so tired that some days, he thought going to sleep might just be the better option. Of course, he never told anyone that, they'd probably guilt him into therapy all over again. Disregarding his musings as what they were, an attempt to postpone this talk. He went over and seated himself on the railing of the balcony, his body facing inwards, the direct opposite of Al's.**

**They were quiet for some time, Al looking out at the garden that was blooming with spring flowers and Harry, looking at Al. Finally, Harry spoke up, "You know that if there's anything you want to say, you can always say it to me, right?"**

**Al didn't say anything for a while after that before finally replying bitterly, "What's the use when it wouldn't change anything?"**

**Harry said noncommittally, "You don't always speak because it might change something, sometimes; you do it so that things don't change." **

**Al's mouth twisted a little as he turned to face Harry and said, "You shouldn't try to sound wise. It doesn't work."**

**Harry shrugged, hiding the disquiet he was feeling deep under, "Oh well, I tried."**

**"And sometimes, that's all we can do," Al muttered. **

**Harry shot him a curious look before saying in a cautious tone, "You should have come to say goodbye."**

** "Really dad?" Al asked mock reproachfully except there was nothing nice about it. "Is that what you really want to say?"**

**Harry took a deep breath in order to keep a hold on his temper that was already sorely put upon by the reporters before saying, "No. what I really want to say is that you should have been there, with your family. You shouldn't have acted as if you could give a damn about the fact that it was your aunt's funeral."**

**Al laughed angrily before he hissed out, "You're so wrong it isn't even funny anymore. You call yourself Head Auror yet you know nothing about it what's going on."**

**Harry couldn't keep a lid over his anger anymore. He had been bottling up everything in order to be the calm person everyone needed to take care of them for so long that he had absolutely no more space left in the container. He growled back in an equally angry manner "If you think your father's such a fool, why are you even here right now? Why not pop off to all those friends of yours who do know everything?"**

**"I would, except you keep telling me family's everything and even though you don't seem to care, those words seem to have seeped into ****_someone's_**** brains at least." Al was shouting by now. **

**Harry paused at that, all his ager suddenly draining out of him, tiredness replacing it. "Is that what you think? That I don't care?"**

**He got up, unable to sit anymore as he ran a hand through his hair. "Do you know how hard it is acting like everything's all right, like you're completely all right just because there's no one else who is? Audrey's been helping but there's only so much she can do to maintain the family while also handling the press matters. Percy's buried in work like always. George, like always, is ignoring everything since a death is involved and no one else seems to know what to do. Bill's missing and Fleur and Angie are doing all they can for the kids while Ginny's completely broken down and Molly seems to have suffered some sort of breakdown. And while I've been doing all I can to keep us afloat, you've been off doing whatever it is you do with Scorpius, and to make matters worse, you took Roxy with you. And you dare tell me that ****_I don't care about my family?" _**

**"IF YOU DID, YOU'D KNOW SHE'S NOT DEAD YET!" there was a stricken silence as Harry turned around swiftly and stared at his sone who suddenl looked horrified and yet relieved.**

**"What. Did. You. Say?" Harry asked in a deadly calm voice.**

**"She's not dead," Al answered slowly, panting lightly as if he'd just finished some great exertion.**

**"She's sick and it's contagious." Al continued as he looked at the mute demand on his father's face. Harry had trained it into his kids at a very young age exactly when they couldn't stretch ot prevaricate anymore, when they absolutely had to come clean. "She's in the Department of Mysteries, only Purebloods are allowed to treat her. Scorp's mum is one of the healers from Mungo's who are allowed there. She told Mr Malfoy who told Scorp, who told me, but Roxy overheard. Alice is working on getting us permits to visit, since I'm also a healer who's well versed in Muggle techniques, but it all depends on what they find in my blood. They took a little of it already, if my blood's vulnerable to the disease, I won't be allowed and my memories wiped, if not, I'll have to swore a vow to not tell anyone till given leave to. The only reason I wasn't memory charmed right away is because Mrs Malfoy talked to Alice and she doesn't know that we know."**

**Harry asked the simplest question he could choose from the multitude racing across his mind, "What?" **

**From the look on Al's face, it didn't seem to be a simple question at all.**

* * *

Harry was gasping this time as he woke up. His head hurt so much, it felt like something was trying to tear it into little pieces. He was picked up in wrinkly arms and cradled close as a high pitched voice crooned at him, "Little Master Cephy be okays. He's be warm, and sleepy and be having bad dreams. Floppy's be making the dreams go away. Hush, Little Master Cephy."

The shrill voice made his head feel even worse. It felt even worse than a hangover. And who was this Little master Cephy? He wasn't this person called Cephy, he was Harry wasn't he, and he had been talking with his son Al. He tried to say this except his tongue felt oddly floppy and he got distracted by it. And then he thought that the person holding him was also called Floppy and that was so funny he giggled, but it made his head hurt and so he whimpered instead. When he finally got himself under control, he asked himself in confusion why someone was able to hold him in the first place. His thoughts felt oddly disjointed. He tried to move his arm lightly, but ended up waving it wildly, he could feel his crossing in disorientation. He was starting to feel really scared and his head hurt so much and then he fell asleep.

When he woke up, it wasn't any better. This time, he didn't even remember being Harry. All he could think of was that sometimes he felt so cold that all those blankets piled on top of him failed to make him feel any warmer, and sometimes he felt that he so hot that kicking of those same stifling blankets was a necessity. It was only as a cool hand touched his forehead in a manner that was so familiar that he had his first coherent thought. _Mother._

The hand started stroking his head which felt really good and he mumbled his appreciation. A voice that he took a little while in connected to that hand told him softly, "Yes dearest. It's mummy. We've called a healer to look you up and you'll be feeling better in a little while. It'll all be okay."

Yes, he thought dazedly. Mummy would make it all better. She always did. She did when he didn't want to drink real milk and she got him powdered milk instead. She got it when he refused to eat eggs and gave him potatoes instead. Mummy would make it all better. Soon after, he fell back into an uneasy sleep.

Waking up the next time was better. There was something cold on his forehead and the air around him felt freer somehow. There were people around him, at least two, he was sure. They were talking about him. His head still felt woozy though he wasn't shivering violently anymore and so it took him a while to realise that they were talking about him.

"…too long," someone was saying.

"It's not written anywhere that use of the magic binding spell has side effects!" Walburga said indignantly.

The other woman, who he had trouble placing, said calmly, "One wouldn't expect them to write such things. The spell was for criminals, you see. Either they really committed the crime and don't matter anymore, or they're innocent and don't suffer under the spell for long enough."

Though the words were spoken in a perfectly conciliating tone, they still manage to sound faintly sarcastic, but maybe she simply spoke like that because Walburga didn't fly off the handle at her, something Harry had quite gotten used to."

"Wat?" He managed to ask in a somewhat coherent manner when it seemed they weren't going to talk further.

The woman he couldn't recognize said, "Hello. I am Healer from St Mungos and you are currently running a fever. It seems the magic binding spell that is always used whenever you go to sleep or are too tired to hold your magic close any longer has had a few unexpected side effects. Nightmares, delirium, nausea, high fever and loss of control over your magic are the few effects that have either already manifested themselves or are bound to. _That_ means, that you're going to be sick a while longer, have bad dreams and your head will hurt but I am quite sure you'll be all right in a jiffy."

Harry blinked a little at that and wondered why she was explaining things to him twice. Did she think he wouldn't be able to understand it the first time around? As long as she was competent, he guessed he really couldn't blame her for her less than appreciated bedside manner, he just wished Al could have gotten Astoria to look him over. Well, he thought pragmatically, when you were on the hiding from muggles who were all extremely cautious and hostile to a race whose only reaction to them seemed to be of trying to put them all into quarantine, never mind whether they were actually sick or not, suffering from a gross lack of food since most plants and all animals were either infected or carrying the mutated virus and part of a fast dying population, healers were rare and having anyone beside your bed when you died at all was a miracle.

He had already closed his heavy eyelids, getting ready to slip into the jaws of sleep, when a thought struck him with enough force to make him become alert for a moment before all went slowly blank. _What was Walburga Black doing in their safe house?_

* * *

Lord Voldemort was having a bad day. Actually, he had been having a bad week but since he was currently in the Ministry of Magic, thinking upon all those horrible things that had occurred wasn't such a good idea. H had a horrible temper and right then, he was hanging on by threads to it. He had finally gotten tired of trying to get any of his followers introduce his name in the Wizengamot for a recognition as the leader of a political party. Every time anyone who belonged to his party, The Knights of Walpurgis, tried to introduce such a motion, Dumbledore would intercede, siting some sort of emergency that simply had to attended to, or getting his own supporters to block the motion. Once, he had had Avery introduce a motion to debate on all the matters that affected the future of Magical Great Britain. Refusing to pass tat motionwould have meant adjourning the session for that day because what else didn't the Wizengamot have to do but discuss all the matters that affected Magical Great Britain? It had been a colossal failure, ending up as a debate on whether the newest Muggle prime Minister ought to be told about them and the idea put forth by the previous Prime Minister, about informing the heads of the different important departments also know about them. The debate had gone on for two days, the Prime Minister was finally told about them and the Department Heads were not.

And that was the reason he was currently standing on Level Two, in the Wizengamot Administration Services, trying to get himself nominated as a candidate for one of the Common Seats on the Wizengamot. It was disgusting the lengths he had to go to, to find a way to achieve his goals. If only they knew who he was, they'd all be bowing down before him. He was the Heir of Slytherin, a descendant of Salazar Slytherin himself, and they dared refuse him? Dumbledore might go on about how everyone was equal, but even he believed in Blood Supremacy, why else would he take a dislike to Tom the moment he found out he was living in a Muggle Orphanage? If it had truly been only anout his actions, his companions would have also come under the same scrutiny he had come under, but they hadn't. Every time something went wrong, he was the one who Albus Dumbledore suspected. Even now, years after he had left Hogwarts, he was being thwarted by Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.

Finally, the clerk sitting behind the desk in the small white room filled to bursting with filing cabinets, two desks and four chairs, handed him a thick stack of official looking forms. He said in a bored voice that perfectly suited his bland and boring persona, "Fill them in Blather's Bureaucratic Ink, Express Black, with a Truth Charmed Eagle feather quill, we'll know if you don't, get the signatures of four upstanding citizens who support you with at least ten years of public service behind them, and the stamps of two members of the Wizengamot who have had their seat in their family for at least three centuries. Bring them back with your OWLs', NEWTs' and Masteries' results. They will be cross checked by the Department for an Exemplary Education. The Department for Law Enforcement will look over your history. You will receive the results as soon as possible."

Which, Voldemort took to mean, meant as soon as convenient. Since there was nothing else he could do at that moment except blow the man's brains out which might cause a mark against him in the DLME's records against him, he turned and walked out of the room. It wasn't much of a room either, he thought in disgust as he made his way over to the lift, the bottom of his robes had gathered dust and were leaving a fine trail of it behind him. What, he asked himself in derision, was the use of having magic if you couldn't even bother to wave a wand to clean the place up? When he took over, he thought with a slight curl of his lips, everyone would have to do what he told them to or suffer the consequences. And one of his first edicts would be that everyone acted as a Wizard ought to, with pride I themselves and their surroundings. Living in squalor helped no one and what was diamond, but pressurised coal?

He kept himself separate from the frantic people who boarded the lift with him and paid no attention the couple of women who were arguing at the top of their lungs, not even when one of them slapped the other who promptly burst into tears. The standards at the Ministry were very low. When he took over, everything would rum much more smoothly than this, he reiterated. When the lift opened its doors to the Atrium, he got out calmly, though inside he felt like torturing someone, preferably the man who had knocked into him or maybe the grubby toddler who had dared grab onto him. As he made his way to the fireplaces ringing the Atrium, he thought vindictively that when _he_ took over, he'd make sure that people had to undergo untold humiliation to enter the Hallowed Halls of the Centre of Administration of their country. Having them throw themselves in a muddy ditch covered portal sounded like a perfect idea. Or maybe he ought to have them flush themselves in? Hopefully, someone would end up drowning themselves, he was hopeful the grubby monsters of untold ghastliness would do the happy inauguration.

Getting back to Gaunt Manor; he categorically refused to call it home, that would imply a sort of attachment to the house he simply refused to have; was no better. His study had somehow managed to resemble a menagerie of birds more than anything else in the small period of time he was gone.

"Blipsy!" he yelled angrily. Where was the elf while two ravens, three eagles and five owls proceeded to make his study into a nest? If there was even a single scratch on his tables or chairs, he was going to make Blipsy iron her EARS! He felt a decided inclination to start capitalizing his thoughts but that sounded a lot like signs of insanity manifesting so he decided to do his utmost not to do that. That resolution bit the dust though when he saw one of the owls peck itself on one of its wings and lift its leg a little.

"YOU WILL _NOT_ DO THAT HERE!" He didn't know if owls did their business in that manner but if they were anything like dogs, there was soon going to be a room full of dead birds in his manor, to HELL with their letters!

Blipsy popped in with a cowering expression. He opened his mouth to shout at her before he took in her bedraggled condition and changing his mind, asked instead in shock, "In the name of all that is holy to House Elves, _why_ are you _naked_?"

She wasn't in fact, naked… just nearly so. There were marks on her arms and face as if she'd been pecked by an army of vicious birds. Her toga was in shreds, not even managing to keep her modest. She cowered a little more at his stare, if that was even possible. He rubbed the area just above his eyes in order to stave off an impending headache, taking in calming breaths. It didn't work and he shot a _Bombarda_ at a vase beside the door he kept for that very purpose.

He felt a bit better after that, if only marginally, and stated out loudly and slowly, "Any nasty business here and all of you are going to become toasty little critters. So, why doesn't the first one of you make its way here?"

He didn't actually expect any of them to understand him but said it as an aside while he extended an arm. The two ravens looked at him with a similar glint in their black eyes and then one flew over to him gracefully and landed on his arm, digging its talons into his forearm. He didn't even wince, whenever he went out, he always made sure to wear his dragon leather battle armour beneath his more normal clothes. One could never be too careful while being a Dark Lord. He untied the piece of parchment tied to the raven's leg and saw that it bore the seal of the Black Family. He broke the seal carefully; you never know when you might need to impersonate someone, and needed the family seal.

It was written by Walburga Black, to his surprise as he had imagined it to be from Cygnus, and cordially invited him in pretty words and flowery language to the God Parent choosing Ceremony of Cepheus Pollux Black.

He tossed it aside as unimportant and though the raven shot him a dirty look, it took the signal and flew off to Blipsy. She looked terrified to see the winged monster make its way to her but held out her hand gamely and as soon as the raven landed, apparated away to dispose of the bird. He hoped there was cooked raven for dinner but held no high hopes for the elf's courage. He would have taken care of it himself but it was hard to do away with birds of the Ancient Houses, if the lineage of the wizards was long, so was the birds' and often, many traits were built into both. He looked at the other birds, all of which were waiting impatiently for him to remove their letters, and held out his arm again.

He was hopeful that by the time he got to the owls, he would be able to do away at least one of them. This letter, he was surprised to note, also bore the emblem of the Blacks, and opening it, he found out that it was a letter from Walburga Black cordially inviting him for an afternoon tea. If anyone had asked him, he would have confidently said that Lucretia would be the one to send him such letters buthe was being forced to reconsider his opinions now and he didn't appreciate it at all. Considering it was evening, it must have arrived in the morning while he was out and he was pleased to note that he had managed to escape having to step foot into that horrid Grimmauld Place filled with Muggles without actually having to do anything except doing what he should have been in the first place.

The raven looked at him silently yet imperiously and he told it contemptuously, "It's already evening, you brainless excuse of a messenger bird."

It made an angry noise but he paid no attention to it as he flung it off his arm and an eagle landed on him, instantly taking its place. The birds had followed the classic behavioural patterns bred into them by most trainers and approached him according to their hierarchy and time of arrival. Ravens, then eagles and then owls went the hierarchy, with different breeds being higher up than others but generally, in a species, the bird that came earlier was the one that approached the receiver first. Such was the case here as well. He looked at the scroll he had removed from the eagle, dumfounded, as he saw it was from Walburga Black as well. It told him that she had discovered a wonderful learning opportunity and being in a sharing mood, she had naturally thought of him, remembering how he had always spent so much time poring over books while he was at school. It also proceeded to tell him that she was afraid that the opportunity might not last long so it might be prudent if he hastened to 12, Grimmauld Place at once.

He read the letter over once again and then looked at all the other birds still in front of him with deep suspicion as he wondered what exactly it was that Walburga Black wanted from him. By the time he had read all the letters, his suspicion had been proved right. They were all from Walburga and ran through the spectrum, ranging from pleadings to angry demands. He still hadn't realised why she wanted to see him so desperately even after reading the last letter but what he had realised was that Walburga had knowledge of curses so bad that a Knockturn Alley tavern keeper would have blushed in embarrassment. Contrary to his own expectations, he didn't feel angry at all. In fact, the post script, which told him in clear terms that he was the abominable spawn of a frog hatched inside squid entrails that was a blot on the face of all respectable dung eaters made him feel like laughing.

He didn't of course, he was well aware that he was being insulted, and quite badly at that, but when someone ran out of traditional insults and proceeded to call you grog spawn, having misspelled frog in haste, flobberworm leavings, the regurgitated food from a whale's stomach and what not, it was very hard not to feel amused as you realised that you had already insulted her worse than anything possible by the simple expedient of ignoring her completely.

He couldn't help it anymore,

he chuckled a little before deciding that though he would have to punish the witch, he might as well go and find out what had put her in such a desperate strait. Why, he might even thank the person who made it happen.

After he had cursed them for setting her on his trail of course.

**A/N: Do please review!**


	11. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I'm black haired, black eyed and still living with my parents. Do you still think I'm J K Rowling?

**A/N: I tried and tried but the chapter just refused to come out right and so i've decided to just upload it as it is. **

**Thank you history, The Dark One Rising,lilyoftheval5, Miss Nailia, Danny-Shells, . , Lemrinth, Johanni93 for reviewing. i'll probably come and make some changes later, but right now i don't have the energy to do so. sorry for any mistakes.**

Chapter 10

It could be said that Harry was having an identity crisis. That, or he was feeling extremely guilty at what he had done.

He looked on in sorrow at the little baby locked behind spell proofed glass doors in his mindscape. He had thought, when he could be bothered to think upon it, that since he and Cepheus were both the same soul, when he had come into awareness, it meant that he had simply unlocked his earlier memories. Maybe it had even started out as that, but what he saw in front of him made it quite obvious that it wasn't what it had ended as. Now that he knew Occlumency, the memories of being taught by a competent teacher had come along from his astral mindscape.

He remembered his teacher, a man whose name hadn't made the journey to his physical body's mind, tell him things that he had taken as fancies as he had seen no proof of them. He had been a hot-headed youth then, just like he always was at that age. The man had told him that sometimes, when people went through traumatic circumstances, they locked pieces of their memories behind doors that wouldn't be accidentally opened. It was a survival mechanism. But sometimes, they went through something that the psyche simply couldn't take and the mind fractured, different pieces of personality going to hide in different places while the personality, the defined character that would help the most in the situation, came to the forefront and took charge. Often, it happened that the person themselves didn't know about it, the piece was so small and the inclination to not think upon it so strong.

He didn't think that it was trauma that had caused the fracturing of their mind to take place. Because it was theirs, there was no doubt in his mind that he was looking at the softly breathing body of Cepheus Black. The baby was lying in a cream coloured wooden crib that had chimes tied all over it. It was wrapped in a green and silver blanket and looked snug as anything if a little restless.

He had been such a fool. There were records of people going mad when they remembered their past lives. He had simply assumed that it happened because their mind couldn't handle the additional memories. He had never bothered to think that it could be because the records were of adults who already had a definite personality, characteristics that defined them, circumstances that had shaped them into the people they were…that weren't necessary the same as the people they used to be. The personality of Cepheus Black had been barely formed, just a little child with the character traits he had inherited from his parents to define them. And then Harry had come along. The filter that prevented the soul from remembering its previous lives had suddenly become permeable and it had been a logical decision to keep the memories of being Harry.

But with those memories had sneaked along emotions, thoughts and feelings that Harry had felt and Cepheus had not. The piece of soul that lived in the body couldn't remember having gone through anything like this.

He had made a mistake while choosing to bring all his memories and personality along… the part of his soul that had gone through that life and the part that was in Cepheus were different!

And that had been it, Harry thought in anger, putting his head in his hands. It was something he simply hadn't known, not even thought of finding out but what was now crystal clear, no doubt due to the intervention of the main soul. Every piece of the main soul had memories. Some had more, some had less, the filter made sure that the memories didn't mix. Because with memories came actions, feelings, thoughts that might not be proper for the life that the body had to lead.

It wasn't just the memories that had come along with him this time, the pieces of soul had too. It was why his magic always kept trying to slip away. It was the soul that gave the ability to do magic, even if the body might have the characteristics already. More the soul, more the magic. He had such an excess of magic that his body simply couldn't handle it and it would take a long time to do so. It might even end up never happening. When there had been excess of soul inside him before, his mother's sacrificial magic had kept Tom Riddle's soul from overcoming his, yet close enough that his magic didn't overwhelm his body's capacity. This time there had been nothing like that. The only reason the pieces of soul hadn't interacted consciously was because _Harry_ had stopped it. He'd locked Cepheus away and though it went against every fibre of his being, he knew he had to undo it.

He didn't know what would happen when the parts of the main soul that were him mixed with the pieces of soul that were Cepheus. Maybe they'd mix seamlessly and there would suddenly be two consciousness. It wasn't something that he could allow, not with Voldemort around. That left only the other two choices. Either Harry himself would become the dominant personality with occasional inputs by Cepheus if he even managed to grow up…or he'd have to let Cepheus be the one to emerge. Harry knew he had faults, knew there were things that he would rather never acknowledge. The choice came down to whether he would live another life, filled with people that had hurt people he had cared about, or forgive if not forget everything that had happened and move on. Of course, the moving on would be completely metaphorical as he would simply become the person he was meant to with just some changes.

He looked at the little baby sleeping peacefully and made his choice. Though he hated to disturb that little part of him that was still so innocent and peaceful, he felt that it was something that he really had to. As soon as he made the conscious decision, the glass wall separating them disappeared and Harry slowly and cautiously made to touch Cepheus. He knew it was not healthy to name different parts of him but considering it wasn't going to continue for much longer anyway, he saw no reason to stop it.

The face that stared out at him was the one he had been seeing in mirrors whenever someone bothered to show him how he looked. Somehow, it made him feel better, knowing that he would simply be assimilated into what was already him in a strange and extremely weird manner. His hand shook a little as it came to rest upon the baby's cheek but when nothing happened, he let out a sigh of relief. It didn't last for long as he realised that he had no idea as to how to merge with Cepheus.

He started thinking about all the ways it could be made to happen before he thought of the last time he had tried to do something in his mindscape. Looking at the pale face in front of him…he simply wished.

The baby did nothing except twitch a little as the man kneeling over him disappeared, seemingly sinking into him.

* * *

When Cepheus opened his eyes, it was to the sight of violet orbs staring down at him. He had had the strangest dream ever. He blinked in confusion as something moved inside him, as if settling down for a long stay. It seemed as if it wasn't actually a dream.

He looked at the face that looked down at him and uttered a happy, "Gah!"

He was naturally a happy boy and being let out of that place made him even happier. It had been pretty but he hadn't liked staying there so long. To fully show his happiness, he let out another happy sound, "Bah!"

The face above him seemed to screw itself up in delightful shapes and he waved his hands happily at that, giggling at the sight.

The thing inside him didn't seem to be too happy at that though, so he stopped waving his arms and put his fist inside his mouth and sucked, frowning a little, and concentrated on what it was feeling. _It _was a _he_ and he seemed to be in some pain as he sent him feelings. He didn't want Cepheus to make sounds to show he was happy? But if he didn't do that, how would anyone know that he liked it and wanted them to do it again? The thing inside him had an answer and made sounds that slowly made sense.

Oh! He was supposed to do what the thing inside did and made sounds! But he did that already, he passed on to the thing. The thing winced at that and told him, '_Harry. Not thing!'_

Cepheus blinked at that before cooing at it. It always made mummy happy when he did that.

Harry seemed frustrated at that and said slowly, '_No cooing. Say what you want to say. The sounds you make aren't words and can't be understood.'_

Cepheus said nothing for a while before Harry seemed to give up and suddenly there was a rushing sound and suddenly he simply knew what Harry meant. '_Okay!' _he said happily. But Harry just sighed before he went to sleep. Cepheus thought about it for a moment before deciding it felt like a good idea and closed his eyes, falling asleep instantly.

* * *

Voldemort looked at the brat with a burning sense of injustice. It had _cooed_ at him! No one cooed at him! Especially not when he was feeling displeased enough to scowl at them. He turned to look at where Walburga was lying on the carpet and then at the Healer who was cowering at a corner of the disgustingly bright room. He stated in in such a cold voice that it could have made a penguin shiver, as one of his newest recruits had said just before being Crucioed for the impertinence, "It seems the dear child of yours that you have made so many sacrifices for doesn't even care that his mother's lying broken and bleeding on the floor."

Walburga might have been tortured so bad that she couldn't even get up from her prone position on the carpet but she was still a Black and had a natural immunity to most Dark Curses, something that often happened after a long acquaintance to them. There were few curses that still made her hurt. Unfortunately, the Crucio was one and she knew that she absolutely had to take his attention off her little baby, loath as she was to do it, before he felt fit to take his frustration at being called for nothing more than to make sure that Cepheus' magic didn't vanish before he could get better, on the little boy itself.

"Thing is," she said in between gasps. "I'm not… exactly broken …and my clothes are… disarmingly clean."

To her horror, he tilted his head to the side curiously and asked with a small smile that she knew would bode no good for her, "We'll have to work on that, won't we?"

Just as she was sure that her eyes would pop out in horror, Kern asked shakily, "Wouldn't it be… more mentally stimulating to figure out," here she stopped, seeming unable to continue further as Riddle turned to face her asked in a deceptively courtly and gentlemanly manner, "Yes?"

She stuttered out a barely audible, "I-intricacies of the m-magical system o-of the infantile age g-group."

He asked quite politely, "Now what would I want to do that for?"

She seemed unable to wrack her brains fast enough to say anything before he turned away from her to look at gaze at Walburga again. He sounded pensive as he said in a mock impressed tone, "You do know how to pick them, don't you?"

Seeing a chance to get away from this encounter relatively unharmed, she said in a voice full of false bravado, "My mother in law, the Lady Black, chose her."

"We'll simply have to make sure this doesn't go further than this room then, won't we? So as not to unnecessarily distress her?" he sounded so unconcerned about it that in the silence that followed, Walburga could have sworn she heard Kern gulp.

"Grimmauld Place itself would rebel." She finally said in a shaky voice.

"It doesn't seem to have till now." He said with a small smirk.

"That is only because you haven't yet done me any grievous harm. The moment you do, the house would unleash all your defences against you!" she attempted to shout at him but her voice cracked in the middle of it and died down completely at the end as she lay coughing weakly.

"Thing is," he answered in an apologetic tone after it became obvious that she wasn't going to say anything further. "We are both keyed in by Orion. If I hadn't been keyed in by him, or if you had been born Lord Black's daughter, it would have been different. But since you weren't as long as I don't attempt to harm an of the children, whose father will one day be Lord Black, the house will do absolutely nothing against me."

Walburga would have cursed if she had had the breath to do it. Her throat felt swollen and raw from all the coughing she had done and though she told herself that she was preparing herself for one last attempt to curse the filthy half-blood, she was aware that it would be as pitiful as all her previous attempts had been. She cursed Orion for keying in the monster masquerading as a man and then she cursed herself for bringing the man to her home.

When he had flooed over, she had seen his polite and interested face and well aware that it was simply a façade to hide all the real emotions he was feeling, apologised for calling him all those names but she had been at her wit's end as to how to motivate him to pay them a visit.

He had smiled in a chill manner at her and inquired as to how he could be of help.

She had frankly told her that Cepheus had had a bad reaction to the magic suppressing spell and that as they were about to remove it for his health, his presence was necessary to make sure Cepheus didn't end up as a squib.

He had lifted up an incredulous eyebrow and asked if that was all the reason.

She had foolishly said yes and the next thing she knew, she was bent over at the waist, trying to scratch out her own eyes as they felt as if someone had set them on fire. The effects didn't last long but she was distracted for long enough Riddle to summon her wand from her holster, despite all the anti-summoning charms on it.

Even though most of the spells that he cast at her didn't last long, he had a wide enough repertoire that instead of being displeased at her resistance, he had seemed pleased.

It was, as he had explained to her one of the few times when he had stopped casting the previous curse and had yet to cast the next one, quite difficult to try out all the small curses he knew at the same person since they usually died by the fifth one. She was indeed providing him with a wonderful learning experience. His only regret was that she didn't seem to like his efforts at research very much but she simply couldn't have everything now, could she.

It was as she lay on the floor that she realised that though she was the same Walburga Black she had been, he wasn't the same Riddle he had been. He wasn't just a half blood with delusions of grandeur who wanted to be in a position of power. He was a Dark Lord who already had power and wasn't afraid to use it because he might get in trouble.

She had underestimated him, had thought he was merely an overambitious Slytherin who had just gone further than she had expected… without pausing to wonder why Melania treated him politely even though she was a greater snob that Walburga herself, why her own brother followed him when even their father had been hard pressed to make him do anything.

She had made a mistake and now she knew that she was going to pay for it. Surely not with her life, no, just with a few hours of her life that she would use all her Occlumency prowess to bury so deep that they wouldn't ever be found again. She wouldn't take any revenge, she wouldn't draw his attention to herself… she'd simply do what she had to and hope he forgot her just like she was willing to entirely forget him.

Just as the look on Riddle's face became cruel, an expression that distorted his handsome features and made him appear inhuman somehow, she heard a sound she had dearly hoped not to.

"Mama?"

Riddle blinked once before he hid his emotions and them a gentle smile appeared on his face as he turned to face Cepheus.

Cepheus looked at the face that appeared above him before he asked hesitantly, "Mama?" remembering what Harry had told him about using sounds that people knew. Considering that he himself had a woefully inadequate supply of such sounds, he was drawing heavily on Harry's memories.

The face that had such bright red eyes shook his head and said with a smile, "No, I am afraid that your mother is indisposed right now. How about me though? I am sure I will be perfectly adequate for whatever it is that you desire."

Cepheus blinked at him in befuddlement. _What?_

The man, because it was a man who was speaking to him, looked at him for a moment before an impatient expression appeared on his face and after a while after that, one of shock. Cepheus only knew what those expressions meant because he was leaning so heavily on the sleeping Harry. Even then, it took him a while to understand that impatient was like when he was hungry and they were late in feeding him and shock was like when they poured water all over his head even though he had been perfectly happy being dry.

The man above him seemed to control his expression before he reached down towards him and slowly picked him up. It wasn't comfortable the way the man had picked him up and Cepheus had to struggle a bit before he was settled to his liking.

The man smiled at him, showing all his brilliant white teeth. Cepheus looked at him in wonder at seeing so many teeth. Hadn't it hurt? It had hurt very badly when Harry had made him grow teeth and he only had teeth that were absolutely necessary to talk. The man had enough teeth that they might have covered his entire mouth.

The man's smile seemed to become a bit stiff but that might have been because Cepheus had reached up with his fingers to touch the bright teeth. A big hand grabbed his after a moment and he pouted as it pulled his hand away from that mouth.

"I am Lord Voldemort and I have tortured your mother to the brink of madness." The man said pompously.

Cepheus blinked at him, trying to figure out what those words and way of speaking meant but he didn't get the chance to find out from Harry's sleeping consciousness before Lord Voldemort turned him around and he saw his mother lying on the pretty green carpet. Her face was twisted up strangely and it took Cepheus a while to realise that she was in pain. He searched for the appropriate words and then simply asked, "Mama hut?"

She smiled at him as she shook her head before stating to cough again. Cepheus looked at her doubtfully. It didn't seem like she was all right.

Lord Voldemort turned him around to face him and when he saw that Cepheus' eyes were on him, he said, "I can make her stop hurting."

Cepheus tilted his head at that and then commanded him imperiously, "Do!"

Lord Voldemort smiled at him as he said, "But you'll have to give me something before that."

Cepheus screwed up his face at that before asking, "What?"

Lord Voldemort's smile started looking threatening somehow as he asked, "If you can't think of something, you don't mind if I do, do you?"

Cepheus really didn't like that look and he pulled at Harry's memories, trying to find out what Harry knew about Lord Voldemort. The last memory associated with that name was something strange, so he asked hesitantly, "You die?"

Lord Voldemort looked amused as he asked, "Is that a question or a suggestion?"

"Geen light hit you," Cepheus explained.

Lord Voldemort blinked at him before asking slowly, "And you know that how?"

"Saw," he answered.

"Why don't you tell me what else you saw?" the man coaxed him.

"Vy?" he asked mulishly.

"Because I'll make your mother all better then." Lord Voldemort answered with a winning smile.

Cepheus tried to keep looking at him suspiciously but failed as he got distracted by those brilliant teeth again. Eyes round as saucers, he reached out with his right hand to touch those teeth but was stopped this time as well, less gently than before.

"No," Lord Voldemort barked at him before smoothing out his face and adding in a softer tone, "Why don't you tell me first?"

Cepheus ran his eyes over his mother, twisting in the arms that held him to do so. He was swiftly turned back as he almost overbalanced but not before he saw that his mother looked horrible. There was another woman there in the room and he wondered angrily why she didn't do anything. As he looked at the red eyes looking at him, he saw that there wasn't anything soft about them at all. In fact, they looked angry and irritated, burning with some unnamed emotion. They were scary and Cepheus felt almost compelled to tell all he knew.

"You die!"

"Yes, how?"

"Geen light!"

"A spell or simply light?"

"…Sell!"

"Who shot it?"

That was a harder question but moving further back into the memory gave him the answer. "You!"

The man reared back at that. "Me? I shot the spell that killed me?"

Cepheus nodded happily at managing to answer Lord Voldemort's question.

"Why would I do that?"

Cepheus tilted his head to the side at that, thinking about it. Finally, he asked hesitantly, "Want to?"

"No, I certainly wouldn't want to!" the man almost shouted at him.

Cepheus screwed up his face as he worked hard to unravel the memory that belonged to Harry and finally hit upon it. "Hit Hawwy!"

The man scowled down at him ferociously as he asked, "Now who the hell is Hawwy?"

"Haw-wy,"Cepheus enunciated.

The man looked at him suspiciously before saying, "you've been eating your 'r's. Do you mean Harry?"

Cepheus nodded happily as that scowl disappeared. He didn't like it when Lord Voldemort scowled at him.

"And why was I trying to kill this Harry person?" Lord Voldemort prodded.

Cepheus rummaged a bit more through Harry's memories, trying not to wake the poor dear up, he seemed so tired. After a successful rummage, he answered slowly, "Coz you fail befo."

Lord Voldemort stared at him silently for a few moments, as if trying to decode what he had said before asking, "And why did I try to kill him before? And when?"

Cepheus nibbled his lower lip as he looked for that answer, finally saying triumphantly, "Coz you fail when he one! You fail when he elen! When he tel! When he forteen! When he fiteen! An' when he senteeen!"By the end, what he was saying was barely comprehensible.

Lord Voldemort however seemed to have managed to understand him perfectly fine as he asked incredulously, "Do you mean to tell me I tried to kill a boy when he was one, eleven, twelve, fourteen, fifteen and failed every single time till when he was seventeen and managed to kill me with my own spell!"

Cepheus nodded with wide eyes.

"How do I know you're not lying?"

Cepheus stared at him uncomprehendingly. What was lying?

Lord Voldemort sighed as he saw that Cepheus hadn't understood what had been said and asked, "You are Cepheus Black. Your mother is Walburga Black. Your father is Orion Black. Who is Harry? Harry Weasley, Harry Prewitt, Harry Bones, Harry Crouch, Harry Moody, who?"

He knew the answer to that! Cepheus thought with a beam. "Pottuh!"

Lord Voldemort looked at him incredulously before exclaiming, "But there isn't a Harry Potter!"

Cepheus looked at the man scornfully. Of course there wasn't one now. He was inside him, Cepheus, after all.

"Whose son is he? Who are his parents?" Lord Voldemort asked.

"Jam and Lily!"

"Jam and Lily?" Voldemort sounded quite disbelieving about it. "Are you sure it is Jam?"

Cepheus nodded heartily before pausing to think on it a bit more after which he shook his head a bit doubtfully.

Walburga sighed inside her own head. This was going to be a long day, hopefully one where none of them would be tortured any more.

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**A/N: I'm at 93 reviews right now. here's to hoping this chapter will make a 100. so please review! **


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